Catch up TV
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 strongest evidence yet that life once existed on the Red Planet. The Sky at Night team travels across Great Britain to investigate this and other evidence that suggests the search for life beyond Earth may lie within our own solar system.\n\nOff the east coast of Scotland, Chris Lintott meets Dr Claire Cousins, who explains the fundamental conditions needed for life. She then turns to the ground beneath their feet, where the red rocks along the North Berwick coastline are marked with patterns similar to those seen on Mars. To find out more about how these markings could have formed here - and possibly on Mars - Chris heads to Edinburgh, where Dr Sean McMahon is investigating whether similar patterns can be recreated in the lab.\n\nMeanwhile, in Cardiff, George Dransfield speaks with Professor Jane Greaves, whose paper on the detection of phosphine in the clouds of Venus six years ago caused a stir. Did the phosphine truly exist, and could it point to life? Ongoing research is continuing to build the case for unusual chemistry - and possibly life - on our closest planetary neighbour.\n\nFurther out in the solar system, the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn offer another compelling possibility. Maggie Aderin-Pocock is in Milton Keynes to meet Dr Mark Fox-Powell, whose team are recreating these freezing conditions in the lab to understand how chemistry behaves there. Their work is helping identify what future missions to these icy worlds should look for as potential signs of life, and has even led to the discovery of a new mineral that can only form in such extreme environments. \n\nAcross Mars, Venus and the icy moons, one theme emerges: life may not require Earth-like conditions in the way we once assumed. Instead, it could thrive in unexpected environments.\n\nFinally, Pete Lawrence rounds off the programme with a tour of the summer night sky, and we are reminded of how vast our galaxy is and how small our place within it really is.\n\nSo, are we alone? The search continues - right here on our cosmic doorstep.
Source: BBC 4
Most recent episodes of The Sky at Night
The Sky At Night
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 ...
13-07-2026
BBC 4
The Sky At Night
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
The Sky At Night
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
The Sky At Night
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
The Sky At Night
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
The Sky At Night
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 Sky At Night
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
The Sky At Night
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
The Sky At Night
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
The Sky At Night
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
Most popular episodes of The Sky at Night
The Sky At Night
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
The Sky At Night
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
The Sky At Night
Destination: Moon
2022 marks the fiftieth year since an astronaut last stepped on the moon’s surface. We look back at the legacy of the Apollo programme and forward to the future of lunar e ...
11-05-2022
BBC 4
The Sky At Night
Impacts
The team looks at the cosmic impacts which have shaped the universe around us, from asteroids crashing into the surface of the moon to galaxies colliding with each other.
15-06-2014
BBC 4
The Sky At Night
Guides: 2. Galaxies
Galaxies are the building blocks of the universe. Our solar system sits inside a huge galaxy that we call the Milky Way - home to as many as 300 billion stars. But the Milky Way ...
11-08-2019
BBC 4
The Sky At Night
Outback Astronomy
In February 2018, news broke that astronomers had seen the cosmic dawn - the moment when stars first formed, flooding the universe with light. What's remarkable is that this inc ...
12-07-2018
BBC 4
The Sky At Night
Webb Telescope: The Story So Far
In July 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope released its first images. They were visually stunning, and it was clear they provided more detail of stars, galaxies and planets th ...
11-07-2024
BBC 4