Centre of the universe

The first Astronomer Royal plotted out the constellations and mapped the heavens

A few years ago, we bought my father a sundial. It was a decent 18th-century style reproduction in lead – something he had wanted for a very long time – and then, inevitably, he asked me to help him s

Isn’t it amazing that astronomy – humanity’s oldest science – continues to generate such a delightful amount of new knowledge? Seeing as we’ve been studying the motion of the stars for a good long whi

‘The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, it seems like an awful waste of space,’ wrote the American astronomer and author Carl Sagan in his book, Contact. Ever since humans first huddled

20 amazing answers t o curious

A poet who prospered despite Rome’s bloody civil wars