The Sky at Night - Season 68 / Year 2024

The Sky at Night team delve into Nasa's OSIRIS-REx mission and find out what it takes to analyse the tiny pieces of space rock that may tell us about the origins of life.

The Sky at Night team looks at how scientists are creating eclipses on demand to discover the hidden secrets that might be revealed, including habitable planets like our own.

The Sky at Night team go cosmic ghost-hunting, looking for hidden objects across the universe that we can't see, but which astronomers and scientists still believe are out there.

The Sky at Night team mark the second anniversary of the release of the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope, finding out what it has told us so far.

In this Sky at Night special, the team talk to Dr Nicola Fox, NASA's head of science, whose life began in the UK. Presenter Chris Lintott chats to Nicky about her early years growing up in Hitchin in Hertfordshire and discovers how she fell in love with the stars. Maggie Aderin-Pocock takes Nicky on a trip down memory lane. Both women studied physics at Imperial College London from the late 80s to early 90s. As they revisit familiar haunts, they discuss their experiences, and Maggie finds out about Nicky's love of astrophysics, the challenges she overcame and how she landed a dream job at NASA. 

The Sky at Night is embarking on a journey into the future, as we explore how space will revolutionise life on Earth over the next 50 years. As humanity's reach extends into the cosmos, we face unprecedented challenges, from redefining what it means to be an astronaut, to confronting our own space junk, to dealing with the impact of life in space on our earth-adapted bodies. With privileged early access to a groundbreaking new report from the Royal Society on humanity's future in space, the Sky at Night team are on a mission to find our destiny among the stars – our place in space.

Get ready for The Sky at Night's annual Question Time Special, where viewers get the opportunity to ask the questions they have always wanted answered about our universe.  Join host Dallas Campbell as he leads a panel of experts through a range of fascinating topics.

Regular presenters Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Chris Lintott and George Dransfield are joined by Prof Raman Prinja from University College London and Dr Heloise Stevance from Oxford University. Resident astronomer Pete Lawrence also makes an appearance, sharing a guide to the stars for the coming months and posing an intriguing question of his own.

This year's discussion covers subjects such as the nature of the oldest galaxies – what we're seeing and how we know they're so ancient. We delve into the search for habitable Earth-like planets and the effects of the stars they orbit. And we explore what might happen to Earth and our planetary neighbours when our sun begins the end of its life in billions of years' time. 

The Sky at Night teams up with BBC Ideas to discover the secrets of archaeology and astronomy and to reflect on our ancestral skies. Throughout history and across the world, humanity has looked up and marvelled at the night sky. From ancient civilizations who were guided by the sun, moon and stars, to modern astronomers uncovering the universe's history, we have always found deep meaning in our dark skies. But is modern civilisation putting this important link at risk?