BBC Sky at Night

INSIDE THE SKY AT NIGHT

In just a generation, humanity has gone from knowing of a handful of planets – those in our Solar System – to confirming the existence of over 5,000. While many of these newly discovered exoplanets remain invisible, detected not from their own light but through their effects on their host star, that hasn't stopped scientists and artists alike from

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BBC Sky at Night2 min read
Binocular Tour
10 x 50 In the days before Herman Snellen introduced his eponymous eye-test chart, mag. +2.2 Mizar (Zeta (ζ) Ursae Majoris) and mag. +4.0 Alcor (80 Ursae Majoris) were used as an eyesight test: if you couldn’t see two stars, you knew you needed spect
BBC Sky at Night3 min read
Build A Parallax-measuring Tool
Hold up a finger and look at it with just one eye, then switch to just the other and you'll see your finger appear to ‘jump’ from side to side. The further away the finger, the smaller the jump. This apparent shift of a nearby object against a distan
BBC Sky at Night2 min read
Looking back: The Sky at Night 15 May 1974
On the 15 May 1974 episode, Patrick Moore spoke with US astronomer Carl Sagan about the many investigative strands when looking for alien life. “One is laboratory work on the question of the origin of life, making the molecules which [would]… lead ev

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