| Season 255 |
|---|
| + The Sky at Night |
#2 |
Hiding in Starlight |
13th May 2024 |
in 1 week |
21:00 - 21:30 |
 |
|---|
Season 255, Episode 2 - "Hiding in Starlight"
Total solar eclipses, like the one seen last month in North America, allow us to see details of the Sun that can't be seen at any other time. So, this month, The Sky at Night team looks at how scientists are creating eclipses on demand and discovering the secrets that can be revealed hidden in that starlight, including habitable planets like our own.Maggie Aderin-Pocock goes to Belgium, where the European Space Agency's Proba-3 mission is going through its final testing stages. This ground-breaking mission aims to fly two satellites together in formation, with one satellite acting like the Moon during an eclipse, blocking out the central light of the Sun. This allows the other satellite to image the corona, the Sun's outer atmosphere as seen during an eclipse. Maggie meets Dr Damien Galano from ESA, who tells her all about the challenges of the mission and what it hopes to achieve. Maggie then goes on to meet satellite operations test engineer Marie Beeckman, who takes her up close to the satellites to find out how the testing is going.Meanwhile Pete Lawrence is out and about in Bristol, meeting a team of scientists and amateur astronomers. He discovers how input from the amateurs was crucial to the discovery of two exoplanets colliding, which had caused the dimming of a star.Finally, Chris Lintott is in Glasgow meeting Professor Beth Biller from Edinburgh University to discover why it is only by creating eclipses of distant stars, that we could potentially find exoplanets more like our own.And as ever our resident astronomer, Pete Lawrence, will be guiding us through what can be seen this coming month, with a particular focus on the rewards of viewing in daylight – but as always, he will be reminding us of the need to take care when doing this.
Type: Documentary |
Network: BBC Four |
Status: Running |
Rating: unrated [ Login to vote ]
|
| + The Sky at Night |
#1 |
Space Rock Return |
8th Apr 2024 |
3 weeks ago |
20:30 - 21:00 |
|
|---|
Season 255, Episode 1 - "Space Rock Return"
The Sky at Night is back for a brand new series, and this month it is delving into Nasa's OSIRIS-REx mission, which last year brought back a sample from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu. The team are finding out what it takes to analyse the tiny pieces of space rock, what they can tell us about how Earth became the planet it is today and may even tell us about the origins of life!We kick off the episode with a catch-up on some of the astronomical news highlights since we have been off air and a quick history of asteroids. Chris Lintott then meets Professor Sara Russell and Dr Ashley King from the Natural History Museum in London, who were both involved with the Osiris Rex mission to Bennu. Chris discovers the challenges it encountered, from unexpected landing surfaces to problems opening the sample jar once it had returned. Chris then goes on to hold a piece of the asteroid itself and finds out about Sara and Ashley's work on the space rock and the complex picture it is giving of Bennu's history. By understanding the journey the asteroid has been on, they can learn more about the conditions in which the Earth formed and how our planet became the water rich place it is today.Meanwhile, Maggie Aderin-Pocock heads to Diamond Light Source to meet Dr Sharif Ahmed. He explains how the very large machine housed there produces light 10 billion times brighter than the sun, from which powerful X-rays are created, allowing scientists to analyse the very smallest of samples.Finally, George Dransfield heads to Royal Holloway University to meet Dr Queenie Chan, who is looking for tiny bubbles of liquid in the space rock samples, in which she may discover the secrets of how the building blocks of life could have formed.And as ever, our resident astronomer, Pete Lawrence, is back to tell us what can be seen in this month's night sky.
Type: Documentary |
Network: BBC Four |
Status: Running |
Rating: unrated [ Login to vote ]
|
| + The Sky at Night |
#8 |
The Sky at Night Meets The Infinite Monk... |
13th Nov 2023 |
5 months ago |
22:00 - 22:30 |
|
|---|
Season 255, Episode 8 - "The Sky at Night Meets The Infinite Monkey Cage"
In this special episode to mark the end of another season of The Sky at Night, we team up with Radio 4's The Infinite Monkey Cage to talk all things amateur astronomy. Join Maggie, Chris and Pete, alongside Professor Brian Cox and comedians Robin Ince and Dara Ó Briain, in front of a live audience at the BBC's Radio Theatre. Together they discuss their love of stargazing and share their top tips and favourite kit for looking up at the night sky.Outside the Radio Theatre, Pete hosts a Star Party. He joins fellow amateur astronomers hoping to get views of the Moon, as well as the giant planets Saturn and Jupiter, using binoculars, telescopes – and the naked eye. But will the clouds part for long enough?We look back at 66 years of stargazing - and cloudy skies - with The Sky at Night, including some very familiar, but much younger, faces. And of course, Sir Patrick Moore.Pete invites Professor Leigh Fletcher from the University of Leicester to the Star Party. Leigh explains how images from amateur astronomers on Earth have been used to direct the camera onboard Nasa's Juno mission to Jupiter. And amateurs are playing a critical role in processing the data and images sent back from this gas giant.And Dr George Dransfield meets Dr Martin Archer from Imperial College London to discover how we can get involved with space science - even when it's cloudy. Martin is involved in a Nasa project called Harp, which is asking citizen scientists to listen to outer space. Martin took inspiration from his previous career as a radio DJ to convert plasma waves that travel through space into sound waves. By analysing these sound waves, we can help scientists work out the impact these plasma waves might have on us here on Earth.
Type: Documentary |
Network: BBC Four |
Status: Running |
Rating: unrated [ Login to vote ]
|
| + The Sky at Night |
#7 |
Question Time Special |
9th Oct 2023 |
6 months ago |
21:00 - 21:30 |
|
|---|
Season 255, Episode 7 - "Question Time Special"
A special Question Time edition of the programme, recorded at the University of Exeter as part of the British Science Association's Science Festival.The panel is chaired by science journalist Dallas Campbell and made up of The Sky at Night presenters Chris Lintott, Maggie Aderin-Pocock and Pete Lawrence, who are joined on stage by Dr Claire Davies, who studies star and planet formation, and Dr Hannah Wakeford, who specialises in the atmospheres of exoplanets.The panel answer questions covering all things astronomical from The Sky at Night's avid viewers and from audience members. We also hear about updates from the Voyager missions to life on other planets and discover where the panel would want to send future space probes if they had the chance.
Type: Documentary |
Network: BBC Four |
Status: Running |
Rating: unrated [ Login to vote ]
|
| + The Sky at Night |
#6 |
The Very Large Telescope |
11th Sep 2023 |
7 months ago |
20:30 - 21:00 |
|
|---|
Season 255, Episode 6 - "The Very Large Telescope"
The Sky at Night team travels to the heart of Chile's Atacama Desert to explore one of the most advanced observatories in the world - the Very Large Telescope, or VLT.
Type: Documentary |
Network: BBC Four |
Status: Running |
Rating: unrated [ Login to vote ]
|
| + The Sky at Night |
#5 |
Black Holes: Searching for the Unknown |
14th Aug 2023 |
8 months ago |
21:00 - 21:30 |
|
|---|
Season 255, Episode 5 - "Black Holes: Searching for the Unknown"
There has never been a more exciting time to study one of the most mysterious phenomena in space. This month, The Sky at Night team investigate the science of black holes and discover the incredible techniques being used to uncover their secrets, and even help us answer bigger questions about our universe.Chris meets with Dr Becky Smethurst at the University of Oxford to learn how a black hole forms from the death of a star. He also investigates whether black holes deserve their menacing portrayal in popular culture. He describes what would happen if we got too close to the event horizon and how black holes might actually play a role in lighting up the universe.Maggie explores how scientists are trying to understand more about black holes by meeting Dr Tessa Baker, who works on LIGO. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory is one of the world's largest physics experiments and is not your usual type of observatory; instead of looking - it listens. The next observation run has just started, and Maggie learns what they are hoping to find.Chris meets with Dr James Nightingale, who has recently discovered one of the largest black holes in space using brand new computational technology and the age-old technique of gravitational lensing. They explore the relationship between black holes and galaxies, as it is thought that within the centre of every galaxy lies a supermassive black hole.We visit our in-house stargazing expert, Pete Lawrence, who shows us how to find a black hole in the sky, and Saturn at its brightest and best.Finally, George Dransfield visits Dr Silke Weinfurtner at her black hole laboratory, where they are simulating features of black holes here on Earth. They use fluid systems to perform experiments to try to determine if phenomena we think occur around black holes could actually happen.
Type: Documentary |
Network: BBC Four |
Status: Running |
Rating: unrated [ Login to vote ]
|
| + The Sky at Night |
#4 |
Is There Anybody out There? |
10th Jul 2023 |
9 months ago |
21:00 - 21:30 |
|
|---|
Season 255, Episode 4 - "Is There Anybody out There?"
The Sky at Night team investigates the controversial world of alien communication. The search for life on other planets is one of the most fascinating subjects in science. But what is less reported is the work being done around the world to determine what happens next. If we discover aliens, how would we contact them, what should we say and should we communicate with them at all?We follow astrobiologist Doug Vakoch on a trip to the UK. Doug runs an organisation aiming to contact extraterrestrials and is here to meet with experts who can help with his mission, including Professor Arik Kershenbaum from the University of Cambridge. Arik is a zoologist who specialises in animal communication and xenolinguistics - the language of aliens. He explains how the common patterns in wolf and dolphin vocalisations can help us to form a message to send to space. Doug also meets Paul Quast, a researcher from the Beyond the Earth Foundation, who is assembling a ‘Companion Guide to Earth' for future humans and passing aliens.Exoplaneteer George Dransfield travels to the Jodrell Bank Observatory to meet astrophysicist Professor Tim O'Brien. Tim explains how scientists around the world use radioastronomy to listen for extraterrestrial signals. He demonstrates how we might identify an alien ‘technosignature' - a sign of an advanced technological civilisation from another planet.Professor Chris Lintott delves into the history of scientists trying to send messages to aliens, and he asks if we should really be trying to communicate with them at all.
Type: Documentary |
Network: BBC Four |
Status: Running |
Rating: unrated [ Login to vote ]
|
| + The Sky at Night |
#3 |
The UK Space Race |
12th Jun 2023 |
10 months ago |
21:00 - 21:30 |
|
|---|
Season 255, Episode 3 - "The UK Space Race"
The Sky at Night team investigates the incredible science and engineering helping the UK to blast into space. We are now one of the biggest satellite building nations in the world, and the race is on to be the first company to successfully launch a rocket into orbit from British soil.Chris visits Skyrora, a rocket company near Glasgow, to find out how rockets are built and why launches so often go wrong. Skyrora are planning their first orbital launch later this year; Chris learns how each stage of their rocket is designed for a successful lift-off.Maggie is given a sneak preview of the brand new National Satellite Test Facility. Until now British-built satellites have been shipped abroad for the final tests of whether they can withstand the harsh environment of space. But this is all about to change with the opening of the huge NSTF. Maggie sees how a satellite up to 7,000kg will be vibrated to simulate launch conditions. She steps inside the vacuum chamber where they will be exposed to extreme temperatures. And she sees the construction of the enormous EMC, where communication signals can be tested in secret.A result of the rapidly expanding space industry is that nearly 900 objects have been launched into space in the last year. Chris meets Professor Andy Lawrence to talk about the impact this is having on astronomy and the images captured by telescopes such as Hubble.Another key issue is space debris – shrapnel from defunct missions and missile tests. Astronomers are currently keeping track of more than 23,000 pieces of debris larger than 10cm, and this space junk poses a danger to new satellites as well as the astronauts on board the ISS. Radio astronomer Professor Danielle George visits Clearspace, a company hoping to solve the space junk problem with technology designed to gently capture this debris in orbit.And our in-house stargazing expert Pete Lawrence shows us why June is a great month for solar observing as well as the summer asterisms.
Type: Documentary |
Network: BBC Four |
Status: Running |
Rating: unrated [ Login to vote ]
|
| + The Sky at Night |
#9 |
The Multiverse of Mystery |
14th Nov 2022 |
1 year ago |
22:00 - 22:30 |
|
|---|
Season 255, Episode 9 - "The Multiverse of Mystery"
The Sky at Night in the Multiverse of Mystery is a magical journey into the far-flung ideas at the very edge of scientific knowledge, exploring the concepts that today seem like science fiction but may one day become science fact.Delving into the archive at the Royal Society, we look at the dreamers who first considered the possibility of travelling to the moon and black holes long before they could be proven to exist. From there, the team explore some ideas and theories that today could be dismissed as fanciful thinking.They imagine a world where a popular TV programme asks two scientists, Hiranya Peiris and Emma Chapman, to meet, have dinner and talk science, all under the watchful eye of maître d' Pete Lawrence.Meanwhile, Maggie Aderin-Pocock sails off to explore the realities of interstellar travel and astrobiologist Doug Vakoch explains some of the challenges of communicating with aliens. Astrophysicist Becky Smethurst is lost in a world of black and white holes, and Chris Lintott, as you have never seen him before, argues the case for a multiverse.Along with animation from the BBC Ideas team, this edition of The Sky at Night shines a very different light on the world of astrophysics.
Type: Documentary |
Network: BBC Four |
Status: Running |
Rating: unrated [ Login to vote ]
|
| + The Sky at Night |
#10 |
Review of the Year |
12th Dec 2021 |
2 years ago |
22:00 - 22:30 |
|
|---|
Season 255, Episode 10 - "Review of the Year"
Chris and Maggie look back at some of the stories they have covered in 2021 in the Sky at Night's big review of the year.
Type: Documentary |
Network: BBC Four |
Status: Running |
Rating: unrated [ Login to vote ]
|
| + The Sky at Night |
#11 |
Review of the Year |
8th Dec 2019 |
4 years ago |
22:00 - 22:30 |
|
|---|
Season 255, Episode 11 - "Review of the Year"
Looking back on the major stories of the year - from the New Horizons mission to the most distant world we have ever visited to the release of the first-ever picture of a black hole. The team relive the highlights and uncover the latest developments.
Type: Documentary |
Network: BBC Four |
Status: Running |
Rating: unrated [ Login to vote ]
|
| |
|---|
|
Login here
Register here
Not in your Filter (Add)
02.
Not in your Filter (Add)
08.
Not in your Filter (Add)
09.
Not in your Filter (Add)
10.
Not in your Filter (Add)
