21st-century astronomer royal

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

This month marks the 350th anniversary of the Royal Observatory Greenwich, a cornerstone of modern astronomical science. Founded in 1675, this grand institution is known as the home of Greenwich Mean

Of the hundreds of thousands of asteroids in our solar system, it is all too feasible that one could strike Earth. If scientists discover this is likely to happen, what are our options for defending ourselves – and who will make the key decisions? Tomas Weber reports

‘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

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

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