
On 1 January 2019, Nasa's New Horizons probe notched up another historic first: the first ever Kuiper belt fly-by. Its target was 2014 MU69, a chunk of ice and rock about four billion miles (approximately 6.4 billion kilometres) from Earth, dubbed Ultima Thule, a Latin phrase meaning a distant, unknown region. It is the most distant fly-by in history, and it is believed the data New Horizons gathers will shed new light on the solar system's early days. Chris Lintott reports from the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland to bring the latest news and pictures from this extraordinary mission.
Source: BBC 4
The Aliens Next Door?
Could alien life exist closer than we think - perhaps right next door? A paper published in 2025 suggested that strange markings discovered on Mars could provide some of the str ...
15-07-2026
BBC 4
Space Weather: The Perfect Storm
Life on Earth depends on the sun for its light and its warmth. But the activity of our nearest star also poses a serious threat to all of us. In the most extreme cases, solar st ...
09-06-2026
BBC 4
Jodrell Bank: Tuning Into The Universe
It started 80 years ago with a field, army surplus, wartime radar and a visionary idea - and it changed how we see the universe forever. In this episode, we step inside the rema ...
12-05-2026
BBC 4
Destination Moon
Maggie Aderin, self-proclaimed lunar-tic, examines Nasa’s Artemis II mission: the first crewed journey towards the moon in more than 50 years. It’s a mission designe ...
14-04-2026
BBC 4
Space Mysteries: The Sky At Night Meets Curious Cases
Do aliens exist, and can we talk to them? What does a black hole sound like? Does the universe look like a doughnut? In a spectacular season finale, The Sky at Night teams up wi ...
13-11-2025
BBC 4
Brits In Space
Three, two, one, lift off! This edition launches into the extraordinary - and extraterrestrial - world of astronaut training, discovering what it truly takes to become a Europea ...
15-10-2025
BBC 4
The Expanding Universe
The team explores one of the greatest discoveries of modern astronomy - that our universe is expanding - and the new questions it raises about how the cosmos works.\n\nIn the 19 ...
10-09-2025
BBC 4
Queen Of Pulsars
Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell is a discoverer and an explorer of the distant cosmos, and she has walked among the stars. She discovered the first pulsar in 1967 - a discovery so imp ...
14-08-2025
BBC 4
Exoplanets - Strange New Worlds
The team go on a cosmic adventure, exploring one of the newest areas of modern astronomy – the search for exoplanets, the distant bodies that orbit stars beyond our own so ...
16-07-2025
BBC 4
Greenwich: A Journey Through Space And Time
To celebrate the 350th anniversary of the Royal Observatory, the team recreate history. \n\nIn the times of the early Astronomers Royal, scientists would gather at spectacular d ...
12-06-2025
BBC 4
The Aliens Next Door?
Could alien life exist closer than we think - perhaps right next door? A paper published in 2025 suggested that strange markings discovered on Mars could provide some of the str ...
15-07-2026
BBC 4
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.\n\nIn February, three missions arrived at Mars. A ...
16-12-2021
BBC 4
Photographing The Universe
For centuries, humans have been drawing what they see in the night sky through telescopes. But there is something about a photograph that can make you feel you are right there, ...
15-09-2022
BBC 4
Wonders Of The Night Sky
The Sky at Night celebrates one of the most profound, moving and enjoyable activities there is - the ancient art of looking up, studying and marvelling at the night sky. The pro ...
10-12-2017
BBC 4
Cosmic Ghosts
This month, The Sky at Night has a spooky twist. Across the universe, there are hidden objects that we can’t see, but astronomers and scientists still believe they’r ...
13-06-2024
BBC 4