THE BIG QUESTIONS
Dashing Blade or Flashing Blade? That is the question. My sister and I are trying to recall the TV series we enjoyed as kids. – G
The Flashing Blade was a French series which was often shown during the school holidays in the ’60s and ’70s.
It wasn’t a version of The Three Musketeers as many people imagine but was based on the real-life War of the Mantuan Succession (1628–1631) between France and Spain.
How far away is the Voyager spacecraft, the Nasa probe that explored the solar system? – M.
There were actually two Voyagers. Voyager 1 was launched on September 5 1977, but Voyager 2 took off slightly earlier, on August 20, 1977.
Voyager 1 made successful fly-bys of Jupiter, Saturn, and Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. It is now approximately 14,270,000,000 miles from Earth, and travelling at 38,000mph.
Voyager 2 also visited Jupiter and Saturn, but it also flew past Uranus and Neptune. Travelling slightly slower at 34,300mph, it is currently around 11,830,000,000 miles away.
Both have now flown out of the solar system, but are still gathering data.
Glasgow has been used as a filming location several times recently as it looks very American. But why does it have a grid system of streets? - I
In the early 18th Century, the city expanded rapidly due to trade in tobacco, sugar and cotton.
Many merchants moved west of the High Street, and they developed the grid system, possibly influenced by what they has seen in the US.
It didn’t catch on in the rest of Glasgow because of the growth of industry.