The First Kiss - [The Courtship Series #4]

Transcript

I'm not lost. I know exactly where we are. I have been here a hundred times.

Look, don't think I don't see what you're trying to do. You're trying to get me to spoil the surprise. And it won't work.

Look, have I ever led you wrong before? That was deceiving you for the purposes of making it a surprise. But have I ever told you you were going to like a surprise and then you didn't? Has it ever happened once? Then trust me here.

You're going to like this. Yeah, I've been cryptic. That's the point.

You have. You've been a very good sport about it. And you are just about to find out what this is all about.

All right, here we are. Hang on. I got to get some stuff out of the trunk.

Could you grab that blanket, please? That's exactly what it looks like. Brought my telescope.

You got any questions about what we're doing now? There's a really nice spot over here. Like I said, I've come here a hundred times.

And call me a nerd all you want. Astronomy is really cool to me. Stargazing? Love it.

So we're going to set up right here. Okay. Now, give me a minute to find that.

Okay. Come take a look. Now, just back a little bit from the eyepiece right there.

Mm-hmm. Not a star. The planet.

That is Jupiter. It is. Yeah.

So look really closely. And you should be able to see bands of clouds. It's kind of faint with this telescope, right? Because we're just using a light telescope from Earth.

I mean, the space telescopes see it much better. But you see those bands on it? Those are the storm bands on the planet.

Isn't that cool? And do you know we actually have a probe circling Jupiter right now in orbit? It's so cool to me.

It took five years from the time they launched it for it to get to Jupiter. And so they had to know exactly where the planet was going to be. What trajectory the satellite had to take.

And then on top of that, now, this is what's even more impressive to me. Or, well, not more impressive. Just as impressive.

Because they couldn't just put it into orbit. It has to be a very specific orbit. Because Jupiter, like, you've seen those pictures of the Earth that show the magnetic field that kind of comes out from the pole and then goes down and around.

Jupiter's like that too, except its field is much, much, much stronger. And if the probe were to go through the stronger parts, it would get fried from the radiation. So they had to not only know where that planet was going to be in five years and put the probe there, but they had to put it into the right orbit around the planet.

Those NASA scientists are smart, huh? So what if I'm a nerd? Could be worse.

I could be dating a nerd. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's more. Here, let me, let me take a look.

Okay. Right there. Okay, I'll spoil the surprise a little bit here.

That's another planet, not a star. But I want you to tell me which one it is. Take a look, it's not going to be hard.

Yep, that's Saturn. And we'll give it away, the, uh, the rings. Isn't that cool? You can actually see the rings on the planet with my telescope from home.

That's, that's just wild. Well, I, you know, I brought you tonight because right now is a really good time to see both of those in the sky at the same time. And it's not always that way.

Uh, Venus said already. And, and Mars is way off on the horizon. It's below the tree line.

We won't be able to see it. But I'll, I promise, I'll bring you out another time. And we'll look at Mars and Venus.

And, um, Mercury. Yeah, I, I'd love that. I'd love that.

All right. Where'd you put the blanket? Hmm, let me show you what it's for.

Okay, come on over and lie down here with me. All right. Can you see where I'm pointing? We'll come over a little bit closer.

Closer. Look, let's just cut to the chase. Come put your head on my shoulder.

All right. Can you see where I'm pointing now? That constellation right there is Orion.

Yeah, you see the belt there. And there, there's actually, um, a sword. It's, it's hard to see, especially with the light pollution from the city.

But it's, uh, it's a, it's a nebula. And, and so it's fainter. And then, um, you know, maybe someday we'll, we'll go to one of these certified dark sky places and I'll, I'll, um, be able to show that to you.

All right. Since I've already been outed as a nerd, let me, uh, let me grab my phone. Okay.

So if I point my phone this way, Gemini. So let's move that over a little bit. Okay.

Let me, uh, let me grab my phone. Okay. So if I point my phone this way, Gemini.

So let's move the phone and look for it. And there it is. There it is.

I know this app is really cool. All right. Um, Taurus.

Okay. So here's what we're looking for already. Yeah, that is it.

Nicely done. Very nicely done. So, okay.

Now I want you to look East from there. Your other East, baby. Okay.

See that triangle of stars? That is the Caddywampus constellation. It is.

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's a translation. It was a Greek name, you know, back in the day.

And the bright one there, you see that? That is a star called Bumfuzzle. I, okay.

I may have made that one up. The other constellations were real. I just wanted to see if I could get you to believe it.

Well, it doesn't have to be a lie. No, no, no, no. Here, check this out.

Have you ever heard of those websites where you can buy and register and name a star? Yeah, it's totally true. And you can name it whatever you want.

And I mean, I won't be able to name that star probably, but we can name one. And they'll even send us a certificate that you can frame and put up on your wall. My wall? No, it's going to be in your place.

Because I'm the star nerd, I'll remember this. I'm going to make sure that you do too. Here, here, I've got it pulled up.

Let's do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And baby, it's money well spent.

So let's pick a star. And yeah, this one's as good as any. And its name is now Bumfuzzle.

And I cannot wait to see that certificate hanging on your wall. So that's our star. Maybe someday we can go to a real observatory.

Who knows, it might be a star that we can actually see. But we can always know that somewhere out there in the cosmos, there is a star named Bumfuzzle, and it's our star. So was I right? You like the surprise?