CATEGORIES

Putting cosmic rays to work

These penetrating interstellar particles have applications from astronomy to archaeology

Set up your first imaging sequence

How to automate and coordinate your gear over multiple nights of imaging

The Universe without gravity

Life with no gravity might sound a fun idea, but as Govert Schilling explains, shutting off this pivotalforce would spell disaster for Earth and beyond

How to blend images taken with different camera setups

Combine data captured at varied focal lengths to create rich, deep images

INSIDE THE SKY AT NIGHT

Back in September 2021, The Sky at Night show spoke to Carly Howett about NASA's then upcoming Lucy mission. As the spacecraft now approaches its main targets - the Trojan asteroids - we check in with her to see how the mission is going

The science of SCI-FI

We love a good sci-fi film, but do they get the science right? Amy Arthur picks six of the big mistakes made in space films

Seeing in a new light

It's National Astronomy Week this month, so take a tip from Mark Westmoquette and let mindful stargazing change your perspective on your life and problems

What to do if you find a meteorite

Ever come across an unusual rock and wondered if it's a meteorite? Mark McIntyre explains how to tell if that stone really is a fragment from outer space

GEAR

Charlotte Daniels rounds up the latest astronomical accessories

Q&A WITH A STELLAR ECLIPSE SPECIALIST

Many stars are gravitationally locked inside multi-star systems, but a rare new triple-star system has set a new record for how cosy these clusters can get

A young Milky Way sparkles

The far-distant galaxy reveals what our own might have looked like as it was forming

AIin astrophotography: friend or foe?

It makes processing a breeze, but creates very convincing fakes too. Pete Lawrence looks at how AI is changing astro imaging

Astronomy X Photographer of the Year

The world-leading astrophotography competition is back! Could yours be this year's best astronomy image?

Cosmic crashes create enormous ellipticals

Flows of cold gas from merging galaxies trigger a burst of star formation

Mystery over life's 'handedness' grows

No one knows why the building blocks of life all point the same way

Spectroscopy

How we learn about stars, nebulae and planets by splitting and analysing their light

Could We Find Aliens by Looking for Their Solar Panels?- Designed to reflect ultraviolet and infrared, the panels have a unique fingerprint

Researchers searching for life beyond Earth spend a lot of time thinking about what telltale signs might be detectable astronomically. Forms of unambiguous evidence for the presence of life on another world are known as biosignatures. By extension, techno signatures are indicators of activity by intelligent, civilisation-building life.

Antimatter- In our continuing series, Govert Schilling looks at antimatter, the strange counterpart to most of the matter filling our Universe

Particles and corresponding antiparticles are very much alike, except they have opposite electrical charges. For instance, the antiparticle of the electron - known as the positron - has the same tiny mass, but while electrons carry a negative electrical charge, positrons are positively charged.

Where Have All The Milky Way's Early Stars Gone?- Our Galaxy has a curious lack of pristine stars

The Big Bang produced a Universe filled almost exclusively with hydrogen and helium; all other elements - what astronomers call metals - were produced by stars, supernovae and everything that happens later. So if you can pick out a pristine star with no metals polluting it from among the billions in the Milky Way, then you are likely to have a star dating from our Galaxy's earliest days.

Inside The Sky At Night - Two years ago, exoplanet scientist Hannah Wakeford received some of the first data from the JWST

Two years ago, exoplanet scientist Hannah Wakeford received some of the first data from the JWST. In July's Sky at Night, we discovered what she's learned since then.

How to stack DSLR data in Siril

Easily combine multiple frames to boost detailin your astro photos

Lunar occultation of Saturn

You'll need to strike a balance on 21 August to capture the Moon covering the ringed planet

How to plot a variable star light curve

A rewarding project to chart stars that change brightness

Smartphone photography with a telescope

Mary Mcintyre explains how to get impressive night-sky images using your phone

Once-a-century solar storm is overdue

If a Carrington Event struck today it would be catastrophic, says Minna Palmroth

The new era of human spaceflight

There's been a step-change in crewed space missions since the dawn of the 21st century. Ben Evans charts its course and looks ahead to future horizons

Has Webb broken cosmology?

Caroline Harper

Shooting the dark Universe with THE WORLD'S BIGGEST CAMERA

Janie Carter reports _ from the Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile, where the largest camera ever built will soon start shooting the ultimate space movie: an ultra-wide, ultrahigh-definition record of the southern sky

Flying over TITAN

Ezzy Pearson reports on NASA's Dragonfly, the first-ever science mission to fly on another world, which is set to soar over Saturn's largest moon in search of the elements of life

Unearthing galaxies in the archives

Comparing old Hubble data to today is revealing distant active galaxies