Ever since the moon landing Buzz Aldrin has become a household name. Let’s look back at his life.

A new theory explaining the birth of the Moon could help complete our understanding.

Fifty years since the first space probe landed on the moon, Ri Lates will be exploring space, from the rocket fuel that propels us and the life of an astronaut to the scientific advances our journeys in space have given rise to. What’s life like on the ISS? How do our modern lives depend on […]

Astronomer Royal and former President of the Royal Society Lord Martin Rees presents the 2016 Peter Lindsay Memorial Lecture. Unmanned spacecraft have visited the other planets of our Solar System (and some of their moons), beaming back pictures of varied and distinctive worlds – but none propitious for life. But prospects are far more interesting […]

In 1989 Soviet authorities admitted publicly for the first time the existence of a formerly secret programme to land a cosmonaut on the Moon. The space race between the USA and USSR, so well established in the lexicon of the 1960s, had indeed been real. Even as the Americans were preparing for their final Apollo Moon landing […]

We are of Earth. Our bodies have evolved to work on this planet – not on the Moon, not on Mars and certainly not in conditions of weightlessness. So it is remarkable that over only a few decades of spaceflight we have learned how to combat the problems of survival in space. We use special equipment, […]

The Moon may provide insights into the organic evolution of the early solar system

Pluto’s fifth moon discovered Image: Hubblesite A new moon has been found orbiting Pluto, bringing the number of satellites known around the former planet to five. P5 – the moon’s temporary designation – is between 10 to 25 km across (less than the diameter of London’s North Circular Road), and was discovered by scientists at […]

The docked Apollo 9 command and service modules and lunar module conduct the first docking maneuvers in space. This photo of command module pilot David Scott in the command module’s open hatch was taken by lunar module pilot Russell L. Schweickart on the fourth day of the Apollo 9 Earth-orbital mission. Image: NASA — INTERVIEW […]

With the New Year comes the inevitable question of resolutions – how will you better yourself in 2012? The familiar answers of getting fit, losing weight, saving money and the like are a bit jaded, although surprisingly resolutions have been proven to make a huge difference to how we accomplish our desired goals. With this […]

Moon Bouncing Taken in 2008, this pair of telecommunications masts in downtown Atlanta, USA carry a mix of phone, TV and radio relay dishes. Telecommunication towers have been around since the early 1900s. It was Nikola Tesla, in the 1890s, who first proposed that radio waves might be used for the communication of information. The […]

This detailed photograph of our Moon was taken at the University of London Observatory (ULO), on the amazingly beautiful and intricate Fry telescope. Made by famous telescope manufacturer Thomas Cook in 1862, it was moved to ULO in 1930. It is used often to instruct astronomy students and is mainly used to observe planets, solar […]

Four and half billion years ago, a meteorite the size of Mars slammed into Earth, melting the entire surface of our planet and throwing billions of tonnes of rock into space.  In time, the ejected rubble – baked dry by the explosion’s searing heat – condensed into a parched, lifeless satellite, the Moon.  This is […]

On Friday the shuttle Atlantis will lift off on its final voyage, when it returns it will mean the end of NASA’s iconic space shuttle programme. The shuttle’s retirement also signals the beginning of an uncertain time for human space missions. Funding cuts and plan cancellations mean that there is currently no replacement for NASA’s manned […]

Why does Saturn’s largest moon have a nitrogen atmosphere like Earth?  It’s a question that has stumped astronomers since the Voyager spacecraft went to Titan in 1981.  However, laser gun-toting scientists from Japan think a catastrophic volley of meteorites might hold the answer. Titan’s air is so thick and its gravity is so low that if […]