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6 days ago | 
skyatnightmagazine.com | Iain Todd
Samples of rock and dust from the Moon have arrived in the UK, where they will be studied by scientists seeking to learn more about the Moon's history. BBC News has reported that the lunar samples – the first returned to Earth in five decades – have been secured at a facility in Milton Keynes, ready for analysis. The samples were gathered by a Chinese space mission, Chang’e 5, which returned them in December 2020.
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6 days ago | 
skyatnightmagazine.com | Iain Todd
The field of exoplanet study is one of the most rapidly advancing fields in astronomy, going from first confirmed discovery to the first direct images of exoplanets within less than 10 years. Exoplanets – meaning 'extrasolar planets' – are planets that orbit stars beyond our Sun. Up until the mid 1990s, astronomers could only hypothesise that, if there are planets around our own star, the Sun, then surely there must be planets around other stars.
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1 week ago | 
skyatnightmagazine.com | Iain Todd
An old Soviet spacecraft that was originally destined for Venus could fall to Earth this weekend, according to NASA. The probe, named Kosmos 482, was launched on 31 March 1972 and was intended to enter Venus's atmosphere, to enable scientists to learn more about the mysterious planet. But its lander, weighing about 500kg, got stuck in orbit around Earth, where it has remained until now.
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1 week ago | 
skyatnightmagazine.com | Iain Todd
For obvious reasons, it's impossible to imagine life on Earth without oxygen. But will it ever run out? And if so, how long will our planet continue to have oxygen? There are a few scenarios in which we could imagine the end of life on Earth: Climate change, rising CO2, an asteroid impact, the steady brightening of the Sun. Or what about in about 6 billion years, when our Sun begins to expand and will likely swallow the inner planets of the Solar System, including our own?
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1 week ago | 
skyatnightmagazine.com | Iain Todd
A rapidly-spinning stellar remnant may be the cause of a fractured 'bone' in the Milky Way galaxy, according to scientists. The Chandra X-ray Observatory and other radio telescopes have revealed the possible culprit as a pulsar, which is a spinning neutron star. Neutron stars are the densest-known stars. A single teaspoon of neutron star would weigh more than Mount Everest.
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1 week ago | 
skyatnightmagazine.com | Iain Todd
You may have read a few stories online noting the discovery of a 'Skull' rock on Mars by NASA's Perseverance rover. Perseverance has been making its way down lower ‘Witch Hazel Hill’ on the rim of Jezero Crater, an ancient lake that it's been studying since landing on Mars on 18 February 2021. It stopped at the boundary between light and dark rock outcrop for a closer look, and has discovered, say NASA scientists, a few rocks that don't seem to fit in with the surrounding landscape.
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1 week ago | 
skyatnightmagazine.com | Iain Todd
"Everything about Jupiter is extreme. The planet is home to gigantic polar cyclones bigger than Australia, fierce jet streams, the most volcanic body in our Solar System, the most powerful aurora, and the harshest radiation belts."Scott Bolton, principal investigator of NASA's Juno spacecraft currently orbiting Jupiter, has presented the latest findings from the mission during a briefing in Vienna on Tuesday 29 April 2025 at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly.
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2 weeks ago | 
skyatnightmagazine.com | Iain Todd
The world's most powerful solar telescope has captured an incredible image of the Sun, following the switching-on of its brand new instrument. It shows a cluster of sunspots on the surface of the Sun, the features often a sign that powerful solar flares and coronal mass ejections are on the way. In the image, each pixel corresponds to 10 km (or 6.2 miles) on the Sun. The telescope is the Daniel K.
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2 weeks ago | 
skyatnightmagazine.com | Iain Todd
It could easily be something from a sci-fi movie, but this image shows a roving robot on Mars, photographed by another robotic probe orbiting the planet. The image shows NASA's Curiosity Mars rover driving across the Martian surface, captured by the HiRISE (High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. NASA says this could be the first time one of its Mars orbiters has photographed the Curiosity rover driving.
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2 weeks ago | 
skyatnightmagazine.com | Iain Todd
The US is planning on building and launching the first ever ‘orbital carrier’ into space, acting like an aircraft carrier at sea and offering a new way of launching spacecraft and satellites into orbit. This orbital carrier is depicted as a platform in Earth orbit that could hold multiple spacecraft and deploy them as and when needed.
