the Moon

What would life on Mars actually look like?

2 December 2023 9:00 am

It would need more than 100 million people to make it viable for a start – living in airlocked, subterranean bases, producing food and oxygen in artificially-lit greenhouses

From revolutionary Paris to the moon

12 August 2023 9:00 am

Thirlwell’s protagonist Celine flees malicious gossip in revolutionary France to ponder on sisterly solidarity, patriarchal violence, motherhood, colonialism and slavery

Heavenly beauty: Doppelmayr’s Atlas Coelestis

29 October 2022 9:00 am

It seems something of a disservice to a work of this seriousness to say how beautiful it is, but that…

Where is there water in the solar system?

31 October 2020 9:00 am

The Moon under water Nasa scientists using spectrometers claim to have found good evidence of water on the surface of…

New light on the Sun

26 March 2016 9:00 am

The Sun is a star that many astronomers assume is only worth studying because of its averageness; it’s middle-aged and…

Following Galileo’s discoveries, a rugged, cratered moon is depicted (with papal approval) by Ludovico Cigoli in his ‘Assumption of the Virgin in the Pauline Chapel’

Moving heaven and earth: Galileo’s subversive spyglass

11 April 2015 9:00 am

We live in an age of astronomical marvels. Last year Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft made a daring rendezvous with the comet…