CATEGORIES

Five of the best BBQs for the summer

There are hundreds of BBQs on the market, all boasting their own impressive features. But which is the best? The BBC Science Focus team picks their faves...

Ideas we like...

Our pick of the month's smartest tech

MEDICINE : ANT HONEY USED IN INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIAN MEDICINE COULD INSPIRE POWERFUL NEW ANTIBIOTICS

It's a first for Western science, but Indigenous Australians have been using the honeypot ant medicinally for thousands of years

ASTRONOMY : EERIE 'SONG' OF TWINKLING STARS DRIVES UNDERSTANDING OF THEIR NUCLEAR CORES

Taking a musical approach helps scientists determine how much a star should shine

BIOLOGY : MOTHERS ARE FORCED TO FIGHT A NUTRIENT WAR WITH THEIR UNBORN BABIES

A study on mice enabled scientists to discover that children inherit 'greedy genes' from fathers

GREAT EARED NIGHTJAR

Lock up your goats, it's the great eared nightjar; a big-mouthed, teat-wrangling, milk-gobbler of a bird that will desiccate your bleaters and leave them blind.

Make a Solar System diorama

An easy, fun craft project to learn about our neighbouring planets

WILL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CHANGE ASTRONOMY?

With computers growing smarter than ever, training them how to spot and categorise astronomical objects could lead to a plethora of breakthroughs

MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE - WHY DOES JUPITER CHANGE COLOUR?

For years, scientists have tried to work out why Jupiter’s bands frequently move and change colour. Now they believe they’ve found the answer

10 targets to get you started in astrophotography

From star trails to your first planets, Tom Kerss shares 10 inspiring projects to kick off your night photography journey

Capturing a first: the Spin Nebula

Amateur astronomers work collaboratively to produce first high-resolution image of little-known nebula He 2-11

When it comes to lighting, less is more

Patricia Yanez on designing considerate lighting for a luxury Red Sea resort

Early Universe seen running slow

Cosmic clocks appear to run slower soon after the Big Bang, just as Einstein predicted

Mastering flats

Adding DSLR flat frames to your workflow to improve your deep-sky images

WHAT CAN WE DO WITH A CAPTURED ASTEROID?

Asteroids could provide us with rare resources

NEPTUNE

The isolated azure ice giant remains a relative mystery

CELESTRON STARSENSE EXPLORER DX 102AZ

Innovative technology provides the simplest and quickest solution yet to finding objects to observe, and this instrument will be very popular with beginners

Neil deGrasse Tyson - "It would be cool if we were some simulation"

The host of StarTalk has become one of the world's best known astrophysicists, popularising space and science for millions

CLIMATES CHANGE IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM

Alongside Earth, our planetary neighbourhood is changing. But not for the better…

OBJECT HOTTER THAN THE SUN FOUND ORBITING A DISTANT STAR AT BREAKNECK SPEED

A weird celestial object that’s blurring the line between planet and star has been uncovered

TIME APPEARED TO MOVE FIVE TIMES SLOWER IN THE FIRST BILLION YEARS AFTER THE BIG BANG

Time dilation, brought about by the relativistic expansion of space, has resulted in the observed slowing of ‘clocks’ in the early universe

A HUNGRY BLACK HOLE 'SWITCHES ON' AS ASTRONOMERS WATCH IN SURPRISE

J221951 is one of the most extreme examples yet

Lights in the darkness Photographing the aurora

Wilderness photographer Valtteri Hirvonen - who spends nearly half the year in darkness in his native Finland - reveals how he found new inspiration in the Northern Lights

The rock hunter RETURNS

As OSIRIS-REx becomes the latest spacecraft to bring back samples from another world, Ezzy Pearson examines how these missions help reveal our Solar System's history

Star-hopping

Steve Tonkin explains an easy technique to navigate your way around the night sky

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE MILKY WAY

The Milky Way is our home galaxy – a vast star factory with a monstrous black hole at its heart. Join our tour of the cosmic pinwheel that’s home to every star we can see in the night sky

MARS HELICOPTER PHONES HOME AFTER A 63-DAY SILENCE

Rugged terrain had kept Ingenuity from communicating with its robotic partner, the Perseverance rover

SIX OF THE BEST SPACE PRANKS

It turns out that the sky isn’t the limit when it comes to a good old-fashioned practical joke

Highlights of the autumn skies

From returning favourites to unmissable one-off events, Katrin Raynor picks out the best night-sky sights coming up in the months ahead

COSMIC 'SANDWICH' THEORY COULD EXPLAIN HOW SMALLER PLANETS ARE FORMED

Sandwiched planet formation may arise as the result of gas and dust being squeezed between large planets