Science
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Stargazing without stars
Even if clouds stop play, you can still make a cosmic connection, says Eva Adorisio
2 min |
May 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
The behind the stars star signs
An astronomer's journey through the real zodiac
6 min |
May 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
How animals use the stars
The animal world is intricately entwined with the night sky. Naturalist Megan Shersby looks at some fascinating ways that animals take their cues from the cosmos
4 min |
May 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Sky-Watcher Wave 100i mount and tripod
Want a whisper-quiet, lightweight and effortless mount? This could tempt you
4 min |
May 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Study uncovers why the Red Planet is red
Mars may have taken on its rusty colour when oceans still covered the planet's surface
1 min |
May 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Stephen Hawking
Hawking's work revolutionised our ideas about how the Universe began
2 min |
May 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Tianwen-2 - Unravelling the secrets of asteroids
China is set to mount the latest mission to retrieve a sample of an asteroid and bring it home. Stuart Atkinson investigates
5 min |
May 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Are we ALONE? We asked the experts
Four specialists in the hunt for extraterrestrial life tell Ezzy Pearson how they're hoping to find aliens
8 min |
May 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Killer supernovae devastated life on Earth - twice
Nearby star deaths may have caused two of our planet's mass extinctions
1 min |
May 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Earth welcomes 'stranded' space duo
The pair unexpectedly spent nine months longer than intended on the ISS
1 min |
May 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Putting cosmic rays to work
These penetrating interstellar particles have applications from astronomy to archaeology
2 min |
February 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Set up your first imaging sequence
How to automate and coordinate your gear over multiple nights of imaging
3 min |
February 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
The Universe without gravity
Life with no gravity might sound a fun idea, but as Govert Schilling explains, shutting off this pivotalforce would spell disaster for Earth and beyond
7 min |
February 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
How to blend images taken with different camera setups
Combine data captured at varied focal lengths to create rich, deep images
3 min |
February 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
INSIDE THE SKY AT NIGHT
Back in September 2021, The Sky at Night show spoke to Carly Howett about NASA's then upcoming Lucy mission. As the spacecraft now approaches its main targets - the Trojan asteroids - we check in with her to see how the mission is going
2 min |
February 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
The science of SCI-FI
We love a good sci-fi film, but do they get the science right? Amy Arthur picks six of the big mistakes made in space films
7 min |
February 2025
BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Seeing in a new light
It's National Astronomy Week this month, so take a tip from Mark Westmoquette and let mindful stargazing change your perspective on your life and problems
2 min |
February 2025
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 |