BBC Sky at Night

Sky at Night magazine is your practical guide to astronomy. Each issue features the world’s biggest and best night sky guide complete with star charts, observing tutorials and in-depth equipment reviews to ensure that amateur astronomers never miss those must-see events.

Welcome • Is the cosmological constant not constant after all?

Sky at Night – lots of ways to enjoy the night sky…

This month’s contributors

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THE BEAUTY OF A DYING STAR • Astronomers have captured a brief, rarely seen moment in the life of an ageing star

Moon collision may have created Titan • The same crash built Saturn’s iconic rings, say researchers

Did we just witness a black hole exploding? • An ‘impossible’ neutrino offers tantalising evidence of the Hawking radiation process

How a student recreated cosmic dust in her lab • Researcher makes a simulated star nursery to produce the building blocks of life

The Milky Way’s heart may not be a black hole • Extreme gravity effects could be down to fermionic dark matter, not Sagittarius A*

‘Inside out’ solar system discovered • A distant star has overturned the traditional model of planet formation

NASA adds an extra mission to Artemis programme • Artemis III shifts from a lunar landing to low-orbit tests of key mission systems

Did we find – and kill – life on Mars 50 years ago? • The Viking landers may have found organic molecules, but accidentally destroyed them

Relief as light-polluting mega-project is cancelled • Chile’s Paranal Observatory and the world’s darkest skies saved from industrial plan

The Eye of God reveals its cosmic secrets • JWST goes deep into the chaotic interior of one of the sky’s most famous objects

Is technology on alien worlds reliant on fossil fuels? • Without coal, alien industry would stall long before first contact, says new study

Rogue wandering black hole eats star • Odd off-centre flare may be a feasting black hole flung out of its galaxy

INSIDE THE SKY AT NIGHT • We use X-rays to uncover the fiercest, most extreme events in the Universe. But, as George Dransfield explains, they’re brilliant for quieter, slow-burn science too

Destination Moon

An evening to remember

BBC Sky at Night

Why I want to put a hotel on the Moon • Bored of the beach? Sick of city breaks? Step this way. Space entrepreneur Skyler Chan explains how he’ll build a holiday destination on the Moon by 2030

Is the Universe slowing down? • Surprising new galaxy-mapping data suggests that dark energy’s grip may be changing – and with it, the fate of the. Universe, reports Keith Cooper

Hubble’s law and the expansion of space • The simple equation that holds the secrets of the expanding Universe

How DESI built a 3D map of the cosmos • Deep imaging and rapid spectroscopy lie behind claims that the Universe is slowing down

Flying across alien skies • Katrin Raynor reveals how Ingenuity’s triumph on Mars opened up a bold new era of flight on other worlds

The new planetary rovers • Forget wheels - we’ll soon be hopping, leaping and slithering to explore alien worlds

Dragonfly’s flightplan for Titan • How the nuclear-powered rotorcraft will reach Saturn’s largest moon and what it will do there

What was that strange flash? • Seen something in the night sky you can’t explain? Pete Lawrence takes us through what lies behind those odd lights

The Sky Guide • APRIL 2026

APRIL HIGHLIGHTS • Your guide to the night sky this month

NEED TO KNOW • The terms and symbols used in The Sky Guide

THE BIG THREE • The top sights to observe or image this month

THE PLANETS • Our celestial...