Inside the sky at night

The year 2025 has been a vintage one for astronomy. In January, we were hooked on reports of a building-sized asteroid on course to collide with Earth. The risk was quickly downgraded from worrying to

There are some Really Big Things coming up in the world of exoplanets in 2026. Sadly, they’re not until the tail end of the year – tough for someone like me who struggles with patience. (True story: a

Planetary nebula NGC 6537 is nicknamed the Red Spider Nebula for its narrow ‘body’ and spindly ‘legs’ that stretch into the cosmos. But in this new view from the James Webb Space Telescope, what leaps

As an astronomer, I collect stars. There are several hundred billion of them in our Galaxy, the Milky Way, so it’s important to find a way to categorise them. While others might rank their stars by co

Astronomers are now regularly detecting planets thousands of light years from Earth – but have we missed one in our own Solar System?

Space scientist Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock is sure there is alien life out there – and she wants a chance to explore it