The Sky at Night

Good astronomical telescopes are very expensive today, but there are many objects in the night sky which can be viewed with binoculars. For…

What is the most remote object ever visible with the naked eye? The answer is: the Great Spiral in Andromeda, which is a member of our Loca…

The Viking space-probes have been operating on Mars for almost one Martian year (nearly two Earth years). We do not yet know whether life i…

Ever since the days of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, science fiction and space exploration have been closely linked, and over the last 100 y…

The asteroids or minor planets are among the most interesting of the junior members in the Solar System. Only one - Vesta - is ever visible…

How is a star born? We believe that with our telescopes we can see where fresh stars are being created. In this programme Patrick Moore tal…

Gamma ray astronomy is a new science; as yet we do not know as much as we would like about these strange, high penetration rays which come …

The outer planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, are now visible in the evening sky. Do these worlds mark the real edge of the Solar System? T…

What effect does the moon have on the tides? How do I recognise the constellations? What is a shooting star? Is there life on other worlds?…

The moon has long been regarded as a dead world; but is this completely true? Astronomers have described faint coloured patches and local '…

According to a new and revolutionary idea life did not originate on Earth but was brought here as organisms from outer space. Patrick Moor…

Six thousand light-years away in space lies the Crab Nebula, a patch of spreading gas which is all that is left of a star which was seen to…

The two giant planets Jupiter and - Saturn are now visible in the late evening sky. Rocket probes are on their way to both, as the alignmen…