If you were a weather forecaster for exoplanet GJ 1214b you would have an easy job. Today's forecast: cloudy. Tomorrow: cloudy. Extended outlook: more clouds. Determining the weather on a distant…

Solar variation has not strongly influenced climate change, according to a paper which seeks to  overturn a widely held scientific view that lengthy periods of warm and cold weather in the past…

A new population of exploding stars must 'switch off' their radio transmissions before collapsing into a Black Hole. But they emit one last strong beam of highly energetic radiation, known as a gamma…

For most of its life, a star is pretty stable, slowly consuming the fuel at its core to keep it shining brightly, but once most of the hydrogen that stars use as fuel has been consumed, some stars…

It's not well known but astronomers actually cannot see what our Galaxy, the Milky Way, really looks like. We are on the inside looking out so scientists instead deduce its shape by observation of…

Astronomers recently took precise measurements of the closest pair of failed stars to the Sun, the binary brown dwarf system WISE J104915.57-531906.1, and the results suggest that the system harbors…

Astronomers have discovered huge active plumes containing water vapour being released from the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa.  Jupiter's moon Europa has been a focus of extraterrestrial…

This is an interesting question I was asked recently on the space show. It's inspired by this 5 note theme from the 1970s movie. (if you don't see videos in this page, try reloading it). It's…

Whether human beings and extraterrestrials could communicate with each other using music. This is a question I was asked on the space show. It was inspired by the 1970s movie with this theme tune: 5…

Over a year after being launched, NASA's Van Allen Probes mission continues to unravel the mysteries of Earth's high-energy radiation belts that encircle our planet and pose hazards to orbiting…