All About Space

The European Space Agency has recently announced a brand-new ambitious mission to an interstellar object, making its way through our Solar System. They call it the Comet Interceptor. This issue we chat to the scientists behind the mission on what we

In a move that took most people in the space industry by surprise, NASA has reassigned two top officials in its exploration programme, including Bill Gerstenmaier, the longtime head of NASA's human spaceflight programmes. In a memo to NASA employees

Scientists have come up with a new measurement for the expansion rate of the universe, leading to questions regarding the discrepancies between current observations and the model of the universe that astronomers have relied on for years. New observat

Astronomers have discovered a thin disc of material spiralling into a supermassive black hole in a very faint galaxy – an unexpected finding that may provide further clues to the dynamic processes surrounding black holes. Using the Hubble Space Teles

Every so often in our Solar System, a comet swings in from the outer reaches and makes a brief visit to the inner portion of the system before heading out again – either on a long sweeping orbit, or never to be seen again. Such comets, known as long-

You're sudying some of the rocks collected from the Apollo missions, how's that going? MA: Only yesterday we were looking at those same rocks that Neil [Armstrong] and Buzz [Aldrin] were collecting in this [8 Days: To the Moon and Back] documentary.

What do you get if you cross the dinosaurs with millions of comets and an evil twin of our Sun that has not only wreaked havoc on Earth multiple times but has long been hidden from view? Anxious? Fearful? Maybe both? For while it may sound like a ter

Tycho Brahe and his friend Councillor Minckwicz attend the banquet of spendthrift and libertine Baron Peter Vok von Rosenberg in Prague. Also present is Tycho's distant Swedish cousin Erik Brahe. Tycho typically overindulged at the dinner table. How

A group of scientists has created a computer simulation of the universe in order to test out an alternative theory to Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. Their study found that galaxies similar to our own Milky Way could still form in the

One of the most famous equations in the history of science is Albert Einstein's equation, E=mc², published in 1905, the year known as Einstein's ‘annus mirabilis’. In this work Einstein established the equivalence between mass and energy, two concept

Europa is one of the four Galilean moons that orbit the Solar System’s largest planet, Jupiter. Although Europa is the smallest of its satellite siblings – Io, Callisto and Ganymede, carrying on in that order from smallest to largest – it is certainl

Europa has had visitors in the past, notably NASA’s Voyager and Galileo spacecraft. On their flybys of the moon, analyses showed that the icy crust consisted of water ice and a substance originally thought to be magnesium sulphate. After recently rev

Being part of the Jovian system has its benefits in terms of exploration. Although Europa hasn’t had the same close inspection as Enceladus, many spacecraft have made a flying visit of the moon as they use Jupiter’s enormous mass to provide a ‘gravit

There are at least 100 billion stars in our galaxy, and some of them are pretty weird in appearance or behaviour. But only a limited number of natural processes are at work, so nature has a way of repeating itself. For a star to be uniquely weird, th

Astronauts will be transported to and from the CSS by the Shenzhou spacecraft, which roughly translates to ‘divine vessel’. This vessel has been taking astronauts to space since 2003. Wentian and Mengtain will have an array of scientific and medical

This is an array of 42 radio telescope dishes in California, operated by the SETI Institute, with the aim of detecting signals from extraterrestrial civilisations. Soon after the Kepler results were published in 2015, it was pointed at Tabby’s Star.

Before the arrival of NASA’s Mariner 4, Mars was thought to be a world similar to Earth – possibly even harbouring alien life. Astronomers suggested that Mars was painted red because that was the colour of its vegetation, and that the streaks along t

If the Sun erupted with a 'superflare', how harmful would it be for life on Earth? Superflares emit large amounts of dangerous high-energy particles, but life on Earth is protected by a thick atmosphere, and there are almost no effects. However, no

From the 4-billion-year-old, 230-kilometre (143-mile) wide Clavius impact crater to Neil Armstrong’s 50-year-old, size-nine-and-a-half ‘one small step’, the Moon has recorded momentous episodes across much of our Solar System’s history. For scientist

The samples collected from the Apollo 14 landing site were in 2008 found to include minerals containing water in the form of hydroxyl, a chemical that includes hydrogen and oxygen. In 2013 a team at John Hopkins University analysing spectroscopic dat

Constellation: Cancer Magnitude: -0.5 AM/PM: AM At the start of our observing period you might be able to sneak a sighting of Mercury, but it will be very challenging: the closest world to the Sun, which swoops around it once in just 88 days, is te

Jupiter is by far the largest planet in the Solar System. A bloated gas giant world so huge it could contain a thousand Earths with room to spare, this behemoth of a world is so far from the Sun it takes a dozen years to orbit it. This actually works

It was fun while it lasted, but the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission is now behind us. Soon Apollo will revert back to being a historical event, as distant to some as the end of World War II or the Queen’s coronation, and in schools across t

Deneb is one of the three stars of the famous Summer Triangle. Its name means ‘Tail of the Swan’, and it also stands at the head of the well-known asterism the Northern Cross. At magnitude 1.3 it is the 19th-brightest star in the sky. It is 1,400 lig

Astronomy is, very generally speaking, the study of the stars and everything to do with them – how they are born, live and die; how they work; the objects that go around them and much, much more. The sky in August and September offers the naked-eye o

Telescope: Sky-Watcher Explorer 200P “I've always been intrigued by the night sky, and decided it's about time I got a telescope. It's been a great journey so far – I've made many friends and gained a huge amount of experience. I am a committee membe

With the darker months almost upon us, now’s the perfect time to get started in astronomy. For those who are new to the hobby and would rather spend a small amount of money on a new instrument, the new Inspire range from Celestron meets this criteria

Cost: £6.99 (approx. $8.50/€7.60) From: HarperCollins The bestselling practical guide to the planets, stars and constellations visible from the Northern Hemisphere, the 2020 Guide to the Night Sky is your complete reference to what’s visible in the

It's a room that has held the tensions of engineers, astronauts and other employees of NASA for decades: Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The man behind this historic establishment was Chris Kraft, who played a vital rol