Science
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
What to do if you find a meteorite
Ever come across an unusual rock and wondered if it's a meteorite? Mark McIntyre explains how to tell if that stone really is a fragment from outer space
8 min |
February 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
GEAR
Charlotte Daniels rounds up the latest astronomical accessories
1 min |
February 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Q&A WITH A STELLAR ECLIPSE SPECIALIST
Many stars are gravitationally locked inside multi-star systems, but a rare new triple-star system has set a new record for how cosy these clusters can get
3 min |
February 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
A young Milky Way sparkles
The far-distant galaxy reveals what our own might have looked like as it was forming
1 min |
February 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
AIin astrophotography: friend or foe?
It makes processing a breeze, but creates very convincing fakes too. Pete Lawrence looks at how AI is changing astro imaging
8 min |
February 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Astronomy X Photographer of the Year
The world-leading astrophotography competition is back! Could yours be this year's best astronomy image?
2 min |
February 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Cosmic crashes create enormous ellipticals
Flows of cold gas from merging galaxies trigger a burst of star formation
1 min |
February 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Mystery over life's 'handedness' grows
No one knows why the building blocks of life all point the same way
2 min |
February 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Spectroscopy
How we learn about stars, nebulae and planets by splitting and analysing their light
3 min |
February 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Could We Find Aliens by Looking for Their Solar Panels?- Designed to reflect ultraviolet and infrared, the panels have a unique fingerprint
Researchers searching for life beyond Earth spend a lot of time thinking about what telltale signs might be detectable astronomically. Forms of unambiguous evidence for the presence of life on another world are known as biosignatures. By extension, techno signatures are indicators of activity by intelligent, civilisation-building life.
2 min |
August 2024
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Antimatter- In our continuing series, Govert Schilling looks at antimatter, the strange counterpart to most of the matter filling our Universe
Particles and corresponding antiparticles are very much alike, except they have opposite electrical charges. For instance, the antiparticle of the electron - known as the positron - has the same tiny mass, but while electrons carry a negative electrical charge, positrons are positively charged.
4 min |
August 2024
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Where Have All The Milky Way's Early Stars Gone?- Our Galaxy has a curious lack of pristine stars
The Big Bang produced a Universe filled almost exclusively with hydrogen and helium; all other elements - what astronomers call metals - were produced by stars, supernovae and everything that happens later. So if you can pick out a pristine star with no metals polluting it from among the billions in the Milky Way, then you are likely to have a star dating from our Galaxy's earliest days.
2 min |
August 2024
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Inside The Sky At Night - Two years ago, exoplanet scientist Hannah Wakeford received some of the first data from the JWST
Two years ago, exoplanet scientist Hannah Wakeford received some of the first data from the JWST. In July's Sky at Night, we discovered what she's learned since then.
2 min |
August 2024
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
How to stack DSLR data in Siril
Easily combine multiple frames to boost detailin your astro photos
2 min |
August 2024
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Lunar occultation of Saturn
You'll need to strike a balance on 21 August to capture the Moon covering the ringed planet
2 min |
August 2024
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
How to plot a variable star light curve
A rewarding project to chart stars that change brightness
2 min |
August 2024
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Smartphone photography with a telescope
Mary Mcintyre explains how to get impressive night-sky images using your phone
2 min |
August 2024
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Once-a-century solar storm is overdue
If a Carrington Event struck today it would be catastrophic, says Minna Palmroth
2 min |
August 2024
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
The new era of human spaceflight
There's been a step-change in crewed space missions since the dawn of the 21st century. Ben Evans charts its course and looks ahead to future horizons
9 min |
August 2024
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Has Webb broken cosmology?
Caroline Harper
7 min |
August 2024
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Shooting the dark Universe with THE WORLD'S BIGGEST CAMERA
Janie Carter reports _ from the Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile, where the largest camera ever built will soon start shooting the ultimate space movie: an ultra-wide, ultrahigh-definition record of the southern sky
7 min |
August 2024
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Flying over TITAN
Ezzy Pearson reports on NASA's Dragonfly, the first-ever science mission to fly on another world, which is set to soar over Saturn's largest moon in search of the elements of life
8 min |
August 2024
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Unearthing galaxies in the archives
Comparing old Hubble data to today is revealing distant active galaxies
2 min |
June 2024
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Voyager 1 is back online and exploring the unknown
An interstellar rescue brings the venerable spacecraft back after months out of action
2 min |
June 2024
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
When Haydn met the Herschels
Jonathan Powell on how the astronomer siblings inspired the famous composer
2 min |
June 2024
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
A quicker way to colourise your narrowband frames
Create a bicolour image in Siril using data from just two narrowband filters
2 min |
June 2024
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Manhattanhenge
New York's urban island of Manhattan, with its gridiron street layout, sees summer Suns set neatly between skyscrapers. Jamie Carter explains the phenomenon
3 min |
June 2024
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
A very British eclipse
In 1927, Britain experienced its first total solar eclipse since 1724. Mike Frost looks at how, like 8 April 2024's US spectacle, eclipse fever swept the nation
5 min |
June 2024
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
The spirit of the eclipse
Eclipse chaser Yvette Cook reports on what it was like in the path of totality in Texas during 8 April's Great American Eclipse
8 min |
June 2024
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Cosmic rays
In part two of our series, Govert Schilling looks at cosmic rays, the high-energy particles that bombard Earth from space
3 min |