The hoax from outer space

From stargazing as a child to presenting the iconic The Sky At Night , Dame Maggie Aderin, 57, tells us how she beat the odds to become a space scientist, and why life beyond Earth matters to all of us

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Chariots of the Gods (see pp28-35) came out when I was a young teenager, and like many others I was impressed by Erich von Däniken’s bestseller. It popularised the idea of ancient aliens for a mass au

The elevator pitch made this trip sound very glamorous, but it’s nearing 43ºC and I’ve been stooping around in the desert for over an hour, eyes fixed on the arid earth. We’re in the Turkana Basin in

Before I can properly say hello to Maggie Aderin, she wants to apologise: the space scientist is about to take delivery of a new shed, so our interview might be interrupted. In the end we are not dist

Fitting-out time is here again. Because I winter up in the Baltic where the sea still sometimes freezes, my season doesn’t really start until May. It was different when I berthed my 22ft wooden sloop