Why the sky is blue, how butterflies migrate & the true story of Halley's Comet | with Lucy Rogers
What's the difference between wonder and awe — and why does it matter? Engineer and broadcaster Lucy Rogers MBE takes us on a spectacular journey through the science of everything above our heads: from monarch butterflies navigating 3,000 miles without GPS, to a Victorian experiment still explaining the colour of the sky, to the 4.6-billion-year odyssey of a comet that has outlasted every empire in history.Filmed at the Royal Institution on 20 April 2026, this talk pairs live demonstrations — including John Tyndall's original 1869 light-scattering experiment, a fire syringe meteor demonstration, a chemical flame test, and a very loud hydrogen balloon explosion — with Lucy's own field adventures tagging butterflies in Kansas and stormchasing across the United States.
Whether you're drawn by the experiments, the adventure stories, or simply the invitation to look up more often, this talk will change how you see the sky above you.
📖 Get Lucy's book — Up: A Scientist's Guide to the Magic Above Us:
https://geni.us/kjGgcLZ
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Chapters:
0:00 Introduction – Wonder, Awe, and the Power of Surprise
3:09 Monarch Butterflies: A 3,000-Mile Migration
7:25 Tracking Butterflies with Solar Bluetooth Technology
12:21 Why Hot Air Rises: Live Demonstrations
16:38 The First Balloons – Hot Air, Hydrogen, and a Big Bang
26:37 Why Is the Sky Blue? Recreating Tyndall's 1869 Experiment
34:13 Meteors and the Flame Test: What Are Shooting Stars Made Of?
40:20 Satellites, Space Debris, and the Crowded Sky
43:04 The Story of Halley's Comet
51:37 A Final Invitation: Look Up
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Lucy Rogers MBE is an award-winning engineer, inventor, and science communicator. She is Visiting Professor of Engineering: Creativity and Communication at Brunel University London. Her career spans designing animatronic dinosaurs, developing space-debris-mitigation technologies, and judging BBC's Robot Wars. Honoured with an MBE in 2024 for services to engineering, she has captivated global audiences of all ages at conferences and science festivals worldwide.
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