March 22nd 2026

Things from Today:

• "Does the Periodic Table look the same on other planets?" - This was a great question, asked by a young future scientist. The answer is "Yes!" (at least.. in all the ways that matter). Although there are other ways of representing the periodic table pictographically; the nuts and bolts of what it contains should be independent of your home planet. The genius of Dmitri Mendeleev (creator of the first Periodic Table) is that he left gaps for elements that were yet to be discovered - even more remarkable, is that he managed to do this without knowing almost anything about the atomic structure of the chemical elements. Regardless of where you are in the Universe, the atoms that are stable will have the same components (the same numbers of protons, neutrons, and electrons) as they do here on Earth. So, although different civilisations might organise their Periodic Table differently; the chemical elements this table represents will be no different.

• Taking Pictures of the Sun During Nighttime - We had a fun conversation about a photo of the sun, that was discussed in a video I linked after the March 8th Spacetime Sunday. This video by Dianna Cowern (Physics Girl) describes how neutrinos from the sun, captured by the Super-Kamiokande detector in Japan were used to form a rudimentary image of the sun taken through the Earth. The video is well worth a watch!

• AI Chat - We had a conversation about the adoption of AI in science and the wider world, including how this technology is being used to solve problems like protein folding (see for example, DeepMind's AlphaFold). I listened to an interview with Terence Tao (Fields Medal winning mathematician) discussing how mathematicians are using AI to solve new problems, and support their research - I have linked this in the Extra Watching / Listening.

• Astrophotography - Peter very kindly shared some of his excellent astrophotography with us, taken using his telescope at home in Southend. I've attached some of his photos below. Thanks to Peter for giving permission to share these. I hope we can see many more in the future!

Extra Reading:

• [Article] The Mystery of the Little Red Dots - J Greene & D Setton (The CERN Courier)

• [Article] When Coupled Volcanoes Talk, These Researchers Listen - R Andrews (Quanta Magazine)

Extra Watching / Listening:

• [Video] Terence Tao - How the Worlds top mathematician uses AI - Dwarkesh Patel

• [Video] A Conversation with Astrophysicist J. Richard Gott III - StarTalk

• [Video] The genius of Mendeleev's periodic table - Lou Serico (Ted-Ed)

Homework

This 'homework' is recurring, and one I like to set my own students (and try to stick to myself!):

1. Learn something new everyday.

2. Share what you know with someone else.

3. Look at the world and "think like a Martian".

If you learn something interesting, I would love to hear about it! Tell me about it next time or drop me an email!

spacetime-sundays@science-on-sea.com