02x05 - Mindy’s Bedtime / Galileo, Galileo!

[bunniefuu]

[together] Ready! Jet! Go!

- ♪ Jet Propulsion ♪

♪ That's his name ♪

♪ Jet Propulsion ♪

♪ He'll rocket to fame ♪

♪ When he arrived, he created a buzz ♪

♪ 'Cause there was no house ♪

♪ And then there was, he said ♪

- ♪ People of Earth! You ain't seen nothing yet! ♪

♪ I'm from Bortron , and my name is Jet! ♪

- ♪ Jet Propulsion ♪

♪ That's his name ♪

♪ He looks like us ♪

♪ But he isn't the same ♪

- ♪ I'm a space tripper and a galaxy crosser ♪

♪ My parents brought me here in a flying saucer ♪

- ♪ And just to prove it was a fact ♪

♪ He flew them out to space and back ♪

♪ Jet Propulsion ♪

[spaceship whirring]

- ♪ Jet Propulsion ♪

[together] Ready! Jet! Go!

- ♪ He showed up, and now it's a blast ♪

♪ Looks like the future really got here fast ♪

- ♪ Nice to meet you, human race ♪

♪ Tell me all about the place ♪

- ♪ Jet Propulsion! ♪

- ♪ Jet Propulsion! ♪

- ♪ Jet Propulsion! ♪

all: Ready! Jet! Go!

[easygoing music]

- [blows whistle]

[children grunting]

- Yeah!

- I got it!

Oops! Mindy, heads up!

- Huh? Oh!

- [chittering]

both: Yay!

- [blows whistle]

[chirps]

- Sunspot says, "No squirrel assists."

- [excited chittering]

- [blows whistle]

- Aww. Hm...

- What are you doing, Mindy?

- Yeah, why are you looking through your fingers?

- My mom said I have to come in and go to bed

when the Sun goes down,

so I have to keep checking

to see when that is.

She told me to hold my fingers up sideways

against where the sky touches the earth.

- Right, the horizon. Let me try.

- Remember never to look right at the Sun, though.

- Right.

I'm covering my eyes with the other hand,

and each time the Sun goes down a finger,

it's about more minutes gone.

- So right now we have about

four fingers of time until sunset?

- That should be enough time to at least finish this game.

- [chirps]

- [blows whistle]

- Whoo-hoo! My serve!

[grunts] Ace!

♪ ♪

- [chirps]

[blows whistle]

- Huh? No?

- [hoots]

- Okay, so no robot arms,

and no squirrels?

- [chitters]

- I agree, Floyd.

This Earth game has a lot of rules.

- Hurry and serve, Jet,

or we won't have time to finish volleyball.

I just wish this day didn't have to end.

- Every day has to end, Mindy.

- Even the best ones.

- Or do they?

- What do you mean?

- I think I see the problem.

The day ends because the Sun goes down, right?

- Right.

- Oh, I get it!

So all we have to do is keep the Sun from going down.

- Exactly!

Then, Mindy can stay out and play as late as she wants!

- I like it!

- Whoa, whoa, hold on a sec.

How are you going to keep the Sun

from going down?

- I have no idea,

but I'll keep trying until I know what to do.

- That's the spirit, Mindy! I'll help you.

Meet us at Mindy's house. We need to get some supplies.

Come on!

- Mindy really doesn't give up, does she?

- Never. That's what's so great

about her.

[jaunty music]

- Hey, Mom?

Is it okay if my friends and I

try to keep the Sun from setting

so I don't have to come in and go to bed?

- Sure! You can stay up

as long as the Sun's up, Mindy!

- Thanks, Mom!

- So the stuff you have in that box

is going to keep the Sun up in the sky?

- That's right! We'll be playing for hours.

Okay, here are the plans.

First, we can use this net.

- You're going to catch the Sun with the net?

- Exactly! - [chirping]

- Sun goes down, net goes up.

Easy.

Watch.

Go ahead, Mindy.

- [giggles]

[whimsical music]

[straining]

- Mindy, doesn't the Sun

seem too far away to catch in a net?

- Hm, you are right, Sean.

- And anyway, no one on Earth-- wait, I'm right?

- Yep. I can see

the Sun is too far away for us to catch.

We've got to go somewhere higher.

The tree house!

- That's not what I meant.

- To the tree house!

- Okay, I guess we're going to the tree house.

- [giggling]

- We have to tell Mindy she can't catch the Sun.

It's just not scientific.

- But Mindy is acting like a scientist right now.

- What do you mean? Right now,

she's trying to catch the Sun with a net.

- She's using her imagination

to investigate her ideas!

- But her ideas are wrong!

She's making mistakes!

- And that's great,

because she keeps trying.

- She's supposed to make mistakes?

- Right. Mistakes are fine.

They help people know what doesn't work

and then figure out what does work.

- Well, I guess if she tries

really hard to catch the Sun,

she might actually get tired enough to go to bed.

- Okay, this is as high as I can get this net.

Come on, Sun! I've got you!

- Uh-oh. Sun's still going down, Mindy.

- Mm. Of course!

That's it!

I can't catch the Sun in a net!

- I'm glad you finally realized.

- Because this net is full of holes!

See? - [sighs]

It's for science.

- Come on, guys! We're running out of time.

I have another plan!

[loud kazoo playing]

♪ ♪

It's time for Plan Keep the Birds Awake.

- Uh, and how do we do that?

- And why do we do that?

- Easy! You play beautiful bird music

on these kazoos,

and the birds will want to stay awake and chirp.

Get it?

- And if the birds are chirping,

that means the Sun will stay up?

- Very good, Sydney.

The Sun is always out when the birds are chirping.

- I guess I can go with that logic.

Wait, no I can't.

- Okay, everyone, here we go.

Ready?

Play beautiful music.

[kazoos playing]

♪ ♪

[birds chirping]

- Stop playing!

No, no, no, stop, stop it!

- What's wrong? I was really cooking.

- I'm not sure the birds were liking it.

Look, the birds are leaving!

No, no!

The Sun is still going down!

Only two fingers left. Hurry everyone!

- I'm guessing you have another plan.

- You know it, Sean-zo!

- [clicks tongue] You too, Mindy?

- [chittering]

[plays kazoo]

[chitters happily]

[plays " Overture" on kazoo]

♪ ♪

- Keep running backward!

We have to go faster than the Sun, so it stays up!

- I think... [pants]

We need another plan.

[pants, grunts]

- So you want to know how to make the Sun

stop moving? - Yes.

I have to go inside when it gets dark,

and I want to stay up and play with everyone.

- Good news first:

you don't have to keep the Sun from moving,

because it only looks like the Sun is moving.

- But it is moving!

I see it getting lower!

- I agree. It looks like the Sun

is going around the Earth, but--

- It's actually the Earth that's spinning,

or rotating, instead,

and when our part of the Earth turns away from the Sun,

it looks like the Sun is getting lower in the sky.

- Great! So now we just have to

keep the Earth from spinning. - Yay!

How do we do that?

- [groans] I'm fine with it,

as long as it doesn't involve running backwards.

- The whole reason we have day and night

is because of the Earth's spinning, or rotating.

- But it seems like we're standing in one place

and the Sun keeps moving around the Earth.

- The Earth is round, like your beach ball.

The Sun is a bright light that sits in the middle

of our solar system.

It isn't going around the Earth.

- So the Sun shines on the Earth like this.

- But how does that make day and night?

- As you can see, the light is shining

where the yellow sticker is.

Let's say that's a person

living here in Boxwood Terrace,

and it's daytime. - I like yellow!

- Uh, good, Jet.

Now, let's think of a person

living on the other side of the world.

- I know one!

I have a friend named Ahana who lives in India!

- Ooh, that's on the other side of the world from here.

- A lot of times, one of us is asleep

when the other one's awake,

so we write to each other on email.

- So when you're waking up here,

Ahana, in India, is going to sleep over here.

- Oh, so when it's daytime here,

it's nighttime for Ahana there?

- You've done it!

- I still like yellow!

- Uh, good for you, Jet.

- I think I see Ahana waking up in India.

That means...

- Maybe it's time

for Mindy in Boxwood Terrace to go to sleep?

- Aww...

- How about if first,

we take a quick run to space

to go look at day and night?

- Yeah, let's do that! [car horn honks]

- Did someone say, "How about if first,

"we take a quick run to space to look at day and night?"

Ah! Hop in, kids!

- Okay, as long as it doesn't involve actual--

- ♪ Five, four, three, two, one ♪

♪ Doors are shut, engines on ♪

♪ Everybody in their place ♪

♪ Let's go into outer space ♪

- ♪ Ready, Jet, Go ♪

[engine revving]

[engines whirring] [kids scream]

- Follow that Sun!

- Okay, kids, we've now flown to the side of the Earth

where the Sun is still up!

- Hey, look, it's still daytime on that beach.

Can we land there? - [laughs]

If you've got a ball, I've got a beach.

[engines firing]

- Yeah! - [grunts]

- Yeah!

- [yawns] Oh, [grunts]

- Are you getting tired, Mindy?

- What, me? Never.

[yawns]

[grunts] I was thinking, though...

- Yeah?

- Even if we could stop the Sun from setting,

if we never let nighttime come in Boxwood Terrace,

then it will never be morning in India

for Sydney's friend to wake up. - That's true.

- That wouldn't be very fun for her.

- I guess it wouldn't. - Your serve, Mindy.

- Hm...

Maybe we should go home and let nighttime come.

What do you say, Sunspot?

- [bright chirping]

[engines whirring]

[both yawning]

[circus march playing]

♪ ♪

- [chittering]

- Mindy! Time for bed!

- Sorry, Floyd.

We're out of fingers.

Play again tomorrow?

- [chitters]

- Sounds like a great idea.

- Good night!

- [snoring]

Time for bed, little Bortronian.

Hey, there we go.

- [sleepily] I like yellow...

- [yawns]

[sleepy music]

- Thanks for taking me home.

♪ ♪

Good night, Sunspot.

♪ ♪

Good morning, Ahana.

♪ ♪

- And now, here's my friend, astronomer Amy Mainzer!

- Thanks, Jet.

I used to sing this song with my mom.

♪ Twinkle, twinkle, little star ♪

♪ How I wonder what you are ♪

But what exactly are the twinkling stars

that we see in the night sky?

It turns out, the answer is right in front of us,

if we look in the daytime--

the Sun!

Our Sun is a star,

and the twinkling stars we see in the night sky

are pretty much like our Sun.

So why do they look so different from our Sun?

Our Sun is huge, and it's so bright that

you shouldn't look directly at it,

because it can hurt your eyes,

but the stars look like tiny little white dots,

so how can something that's so big and bright

be the same thing as something that's so tiny and dim?

Our Sun is an enormous ball of flaming hot gas

that's churning kind of like boiling water.

At thousands of degrees,

it's way hotter than your oven turned up at full blast.

The stars we see in the night sky

are basically the same as our Sun.

They're just flaming hot blobs of gas

that are much farther away from the Earth.

They're so far away, they look like

tiny faint points of light,

but these stars are just like our Sun,

and many of them have planets all their own.

So the next time you hear the song,

"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,"

here's some new lyrics to try:

♪ Twinkle, twinkle, little star ♪

♪ Now I know just what you are ♪

[easygoing music]

♪ ♪

- [hoots]

- There goes the Sun, flying around the Earth,

to the bottom of the sky.

- [grunts] Uh, actually, Mindy,

it's the Earth that goes around the Sun.

- Not the other way around.

- No, the Sun goes around the Earth.

I've been watching it,

and it does what it does every day:

comes up over there,

then goes way up overhead

and sets down over there.

See? It's setting right now.

- I know it looks that way. For a long time,

people used to think that the Sun

went around the Earth.

- [chuckling] Wow. Earthies.

- But now we know better.

- Really? How do we know that?

Who could figure that out?

- Scientists figured it out.

- Did someone say "scientist?"

Buona sera.

That means "good evening" in the Italian language.

- Uh-oh. Is it Halloween again?

How come no one told me?

- This isn't Halloween, Mindy.

It's science.

- [happy chirp]

- Uh, Sean?

You don't look like a scientist.

- I look like one from a long time ago.

See, tomorrow, I'm going to do a report on Galileo.

- Gali-who?

- [laughs] Galileo.

He's an early astronomer. You know?

Scientists that study the stars?

- Yup, and one of my heroes,

like Neil Armstrong, Albert Einstein,

Madame Curie, Patty Smith...

- [confused chirp] - Anyway,

I thought it would be cool to do my report on Galileo

dressed up like him.

My mom made the costume.

I'm just trying it on.

Eccellente.

- So you're going to do a big report at school

in this Gali-who costume?

- Uh-huh, and it's "Galileo."

- And wear it in front of the whole class?

- Uh... - How many kids is that?

A lot of kids? Like, every kid ever?

- Uh... - A hundred?

A thousand? - Uh...

- A million?

- I'm... not sure

I can actually pull this off

in front of all those kids.

- It's a great costume, Sean!

It'll be a big hit.

- Yeah, you'll be a great

Gali-- uh, whatchamacallit.

- Galileo.

I don't know. Is this hat too much?

And the beard?

- Sean, the hat's great.

You love Galileo!

You'll do fine.

- Why don't you practice?

Start by telling us

why Galileo is your hero.

- [clears throat] Well, he built his own telescope

and he looked at the stars and the planets,

the Moon and the Sun. Can you believe it?

years ago,

Galileo did pretty much the same thing

with his telescope as astronomers do today.

- Yeah, look, there's Venus!

It's the brightest planet in the night sky.

- Heh, good old Venus,

going down right behind the Sun.

- Okay, wait.

You just said it.

Venus is going down

after the Sun.

See? All the planets

go around the Earth.

- Actually, Mindy,

the most important thing that Galileo did

was he guessed that the Sun doesn't orbit around the Earth.

- Oh, "orbit!"

Is that the word Earthies use

when they mean "go around?"

Like I'm orbiting around Mindy

right now?

- Yep. Galileo discovered

that it's the other way around.

The Earth orbits around the Sun.

- That's what everyone's been trying to tell me,

but it doesn't make sense.

I wish this Gali-who-oh guy

was around to explain it.

- Well, Sean?

I mean, Galileo?

- [sighs] Okay, let's see.

The actual Galileo

lived a long time ago.

- You mean like a year ago?

- Uh, nuh-uh.

- Two years ago? - Mm-mm.

- A million years?

- Nope, somewhere in between.

A time so long ago that everything was different.

- How, Mr. Gali-who-lo? - [squeaks]

- What was the world like then?

- Hm, let's see...

[harp music]

A place called Italy,

years ago.

It was so long ago

that there were no cars,

no planes,

no cartoons.

- [shocked gasp]

No cartoons?

What did they watch all day?

- The sky. They were out in

the beautiful Italian countryside,

with hills and castles

and a sky full of stars all around them.

- Castles? Cool.

What else?

- [hoots]

[lurching music]

- Well, there was something new:

telescopes,

and they've just been invented,

and since I'm Galileo the astronomer,

I need a telescope, too. - [chirps]

- Grazie <span> , Sunspot.

That means "thanks."

- [chirps] - Hey,

you could be my pet cat,

I call you Cosmo.

- [barks]

- I said my cat, Cosmo.

- [bleats]

- [sighs] Fine.

- So, while everyone else

did regular Italian stuff...

- The astronomers looked at the sky

and studied what the Sun and Moon

and stars and planets were up to.

- Good, 'cause I have a question

about the Sun, Mr. Galileo the astronomer.

It looks like the Sun is

moving around the Earth,

- Aha! But it isn't.

It's the other way around.

First of all, it looks like

the Sun is moving around the Earth

because the Earth is also rotating

as it goes around the Sun.

I'll demonstrate.

Cosmo, would you play the Sun?

[whimsical music]

- Rotate with me, Mindy,

and you'll see the Sun over there

rise up and set down.

- Oh! When I spin,

it looks like Sunspot moves,

just like it looks when the Sun moves across the sky!

Cool!

I think I get it, Mr. Galileo.

- Eccellente.

That's Italian for "excellent."

- Okay, but still, how do you figure

that the Sun and the planets don't go around the Earth?

- I'll explain.

One night, just like this one,

I was looking at the planets in the sky--

which people can do today, too!

All you need is a telescope, or a pair of binoculars.

[otherworldly music]

Anyways, I was looking at Jupiter,

and I saw four little moons.

Up until that time in history,

Earthies thought that all the planets

and the Sun orbited the Earth.

Together: Woo-hoo! We're orbiting the Earth!

- But I, Galileo,

realized something wasn't right,

because I watched Jupiter's moons every night.

That's when I realized something:

something important. - What?

- Each night, I could see that the moons

were in different positions.

They were orbiting around Jupiter!

all: Ooh...

- So my hypothesis was

that maybe all the planets and the Earth

could be orbiting around the Sun,

which turned out to be true!

Boo-yah! Science.

- [chirps] [all cheering]

- Molto buono <span> , Cosmo.

That's Italian for "really good, Cosmo."

This is known as the heliocentric theory.

"Helio-" means "sun" in Greek.

The Sun is the center

of everything in the solar system.

- Heliocentric.

I love that word!

[light rock music]

♪ Heliocentric ♪

all: ♪ Heliocentric ♪

- ♪ I love the way it sounds ♪

♪ Have you heard helio- is a word ♪

♪ For the Sun we spin around ♪

♪ Heliocentric ♪

all: ♪ Heliocentric ♪

- ♪ Just saying it is fun ♪

♪ It has a lovely ring ♪

♪ It means every little thing ♪

♪ Orbits all around the Sun ♪

all: ♪ Yeah ♪

- So then what did you do, Mr. Galileo?

- Well, I used my telescope

to make observations,

I wrote down what I saw,

and I shared my findings with others,

like a science hero should.

- How did all the Earthies back in the old days

feel about that amazing discovery?

- Funny you should ask, alien person from the future.

Actually, not everyone could handle that fact--

that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe.

- [laughs] Yeah,

not to us aliens from another planet, it isn't!

- Yep. People were upset

to find that out, but you know what?

He told them anyway.

- How? Did he put his ideas in a book?

- He sure did!

It says right here in my "Big Old Book of New Ideas."

His book was a big deal in those days.

Galileo wasn't afraid of new ideas.

[accordion music]

♪ Well ♪

♪ Some folks say that the world is flat ♪

♪ The edge is very scary ♪

♪ But me I say the world is round ♪

♪ Exactly the contrary ♪

♪ The same folks say the Sun is circling ♪

♪ Earth is at the center ♪

♪ But I say we orbit around the Sun ♪

♪ 'Cause I am a scientist ♪

♪ And a hypothesis inventor ♪

- ♪ We're not afraid of new ideas ♪

♪ We know we can't deny them ♪

♪ The best things come from new ideas ♪

♪ If folks would only try them ♪

all: ♪ Some people run from new ideas ♪

♪ But we like to embrace them ♪

♪ Old ideas got to go so new ones can replace them ♪

♪ I'm not afraid of new ideas ♪

♪ I know I can't deny them ♪

♪ The best things come from new ideas ♪

♪ If folks would only try them ♪

♪ Don't be scared of new ideas ♪

♪ Explore them to the letter ♪

♪ The world can be much better ♪

♪ When we're not afraid of new ideas ♪

♪ ♪

[all cheering]

- Yeah! Whoo. Thanks for letting me

run through my Galileo story, you guys.

- It was great, Sean.

[laughs] I mean Mr. Galileo.

- [laughs] Yeah, I kinda was Galileo there for a minute.

I'm not nervous about doing my report anymore.

In fact, I'm completely stoked to do it.

- Stoked? Uh, I don't speak Italian.

- Huh. Excited?

- Ah, excited! Okay.

- Hey, you guys?

Would you even help me bring our Italy set to school?

- [inhales deeply] You mean we get to be Italians?

all: Yes!

- Sunspot? - [chirps]

all: ♪ I'm not afraid of new ideas ♪

♪ I know I can't deny them ♪

♪ The best things come from new ideas ♪

♪ If folks would only try them ♪

♪ Don't be scared of new ideas ♪

♪ Explore them to the letter ♪

♪ The world can be much better ♪

♪ When we're not afraid of new ideas ♪

♪ ♪

- Hi, I'm astronomer Amy Mainzer.

Some of the best tools that you have

to observe the night sky are your eyes.

You might see as many as a couple thousand stars.

Astronomers like me want to find more stars,

and we want to learn more about them,

so to do that, we need bigger eyeballs.

This is the Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory,

and it's a huge telescope.

It's a really giant eyeball.

This is Dr. Mark Rafalsky,

and he's an astronomer working here at Palomar Observatory.

What's it like to use this telescope?

- It's truly awe-inspiring.

It's one of the largest telescopes in the world,

and we make amazing discoveries with it.

- What are some of the basic parts?

I mean, I see here this big stalk-y looking thing

and we got another tube-y-looking thing.

- There's a primary mirror.

This is what does all the light collecting.

This is a, uh, -inch mirror.

This is why it's called a -inch.

- inches of mirror?

inches is bigger than two big school desks combined.

- And then, in addition to the primary mirror,

you have a secondary.

So the light comes in

and it bounces off the primary,

and then comes up,

hits a bunch of smaller mirrors,

and then comes down to your instrument.

- So the light from the stars

comes all the way down and hits this mirror,

and then it goes up to that one right there

and goes back down all the way down again...

- To those boxes.

- And inside those boxes are cameras,

the eyes of the telescope.

- We've been doing science with this telescope

for years,

and we're still making groundbreaking discoveries.

- And with an eyeball that big,

I can't wait to see what we discover next.

Good luck making your own groundbreaking discoveries

with the Hale Telescope.

- ♪ Jet Propulsion ♪

- ♪ Ready, Jet, go ♪

[light rock music]

♪ ♪

- ♪ Jet Propulsion ♪

- ♪ Jet Propulsion ♪

♪ Jet Propulsion ready Jet go ♪