The Sky at Night - Season 62 / Year 2018

The Sky at Night reports on one of the most unnerving discoveries in space science - that most of the universe is missing. We live in a material world, so instinctively we know what normal matter is - the world around us, the planets, stars and interstellar dust. But scientists currently estimate that 95 per cent of everything in the universe is actually - one way or another - invisible. Some of this is ordinary matter that we just can't easily see. But there's also stuff that's much more weird. For instance, there's a new kind of matter we think is out there, but whose very existence is still largely hypothetical - dark matter. And most mysteriously of all, scientists think there is an unknown form of energy pervading the universe that we know so little about, all it has so far is a name - dark energy. The Sky at Night takes you on a tour of this invisible universe, and shows how its existence - or lack of it - will define the fate of the entire universe.

The team investigates an astronomical detective story. In October 2017, astronomers spotted the first ever object to visit our solar system from outer space. They called it 'Oumuamua. Its discovery set off a hurricane of press speculation and a major scientific investigation. The Sky at Night goes to Queen's University in Belfast, which has become the centre of scientific research on this cosmic visitor. When they first spotted it, all scientists knew was that it was small, it was travelling fast, and it came from outside our solar system. What did it look like? How had it formed? What was it made of? Where had it come from? To answer these questions, the team pieces together all the clues that scientists have extracted from the small amounts of data collected as 'Oumuamua flashed through the solar system.

Maggie Aderin-Pocock and Chris Lintott reveal the latest results from Nasa's Curiosity and Esa's ExoMars TGO missions that are attempting to find signs of life on Mars. Maggie visits the Airbus 'Mars Yard' to find out how the next lander heading to Mars is being built to survive the planet's incredibly hostile environment. And the team asks - if Mars is a dead planet, could the first life on Mars be humans? Chris talks to Andy Weir, author of The Martian, about whether a manned mission to Mars is just a fantasy.

For past three and a half years, ESA's Gaia Space telescope has been mapping the heavens in unprecedented detail. At the end of April 2018 it released precise data on over 1.3 billion stars in the Milky Way showing how they move over time and their distance from Earth. Maggie and Chris reveal some of the most surprising initial findings, from the discovery of wandering black holes, hyper velocity stars and 'transient phenomena' to a brand new age map of the Milky Way and concrete evidence of how our galaxy formed.

Nasa's Juno spacecraft is currently making its 13th orbit of Jupiter on one of the most ambitious and risky space missions ever undertaken. The astonishing images it has captured are not just visually stunning, they also deliver spectacular scientific insight, revolutionising our ideas about Jupiter. Maggie Aderin-Pocock explores these stunning discoveries, from a new understanding of Jupiter's core and formation to revelations about how deep its raging storms penetrate the planet's mysterious interior.

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 incredible event was discovered by an instrument the size of a ping-pong table in a remote corner of Western Australia. Chris Lintott travels to the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory to find out how they did it and what else the extraordinary radio telescopes there can tell us about the universe.

This episode looks at a solar phenomenon called coronal mass ejection - violent eruptions from the sun's surface - examining just how damaging a CME could be and how astronomers, using two new satellites that will travel closer to the sun than ever before, can better prepare us for its impact. A well-known example of a CME was recorded in 1859, when a spectacular blood-red aurora borealis appeared across America. Earlier that same day, in a leafy garden in the UK, a gentleman astronomer had noted a 'white light flare' on the sun's surface. The two events were linked, and it is now known that the flare caused the aurora. Back then, it was considered an astronomical curiosity, but when it happens again, it will be a different story. For the modern, technological world such a violent solar phenomenon could be devastating.

A look at two missions attempting one of the most difficult feats of space exploration, to collect a rock from another world. This episode checks in on the US and Japanese attempts to bring a piece of an asteroid back to Earth. The missions have taken decades of planning, but the results will be worth it. We'll find out how studying these space rocks can teach us about the origins of our solar and may one day help save earth from a catastrophic collision.

This edition looks at Britain's attempt to become a major player in the modern space race. From Scotland's wild northern shore, where Britain's first spaceport is planned, to the team planning Britain's new rocket system, the programme explores the technology behind a quiet revolution in Britain's space industry. Driving the resurgence of 'space Britannia' is a new breed of spacecraft - micro-satellites. As many as 12,000 of them will be built and launched worldwide over the next decade, and Britain is aiming for a slice of the action. Also, guest presenter Tim Peake celebrates Britain's past achievements in space and finds out where it all went wrong.

Documentary series. Mercury, unique amongst the planets, is shrinking. And that's only the beginning of how strange the solar system's smallest planet is. In October 2018 a new mission to Mercury was launched - BepiColombo. It's a spacecraft consisting of two separate orbiters. Together, these hope to achieve the most complete exploration of Mercury to date.

Since its launch, the spacecraft has been hurtling through space towards the inner solar system on an arduous seven-year journey that includes nine fly-bys of other planets. Its destination is dangerous: Mercury has some of the most extreme conditions in the Solar System.

The Sky at Night investigates how Bepi was built, how it will get to Mercury and what it hopes to discover. Three big questions are at stake. How did Mercury form? Why is it shrinking? And how has it survived the full blast of the sun?

In this special programme, the Sky at Night takes to the air on board the largest airborne observatory in the world - a specially modified jumbo jet, flying out of California. This extraordinary aircraft is home to a 17-tonne telescope that observes the galaxy from around 40,000 feet. This telescope - called SOFIA - specialises in infrared astronomy. It can peer into the heart of a galaxy through the dust and gas, and see how stars form. It's designed to answer some of the biggest questions in astronomy: why aren't more stars being created and how do planets form?