Find out when the next episode of The Sky at Night is on TV, and what the latest episode is about.
After a 4-month hiatus, The Sky at Night is returning to our TV screens in April.
The long-running BBC astronomy show’s last episode, The Multiverse of Mystery, aired in November 2022.
The production team and presenters Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Chris Lintott and Pete Lawrence then took a short break, but are set to return for a new series this spring.
When is The Sky at Night next on TV?
The next episode of The Sky at Night will be shown on BBC Four on 10 April 2023 at 10pm, and will be exploring how astronomers are searching for signs of life beyond Earth.
The episode will be repeated on BBC Four on 13 April at 7pm.
Episode title: The Search for Alien Life
Synopsis: In the April 2023 episode of The Sky at Night, the team are exploring the search for extra-terrestrial life.
The search for life beyond Earth is a popular talking point at the moment, and scientists are able to use advanced engineering and technology to search for habitable conditions within our own Solar System, as well as looking for signs of life at exoplanets, which are planets orbiting stars beyond our Sun.
In the April episode, Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock visits Professor Mark Sephton at Imperial College London – a key scientist involved with the Perseverance Rover mission on Mars. The Perseverance sample return mission will bring material from the surface of the Red planet back to Earth – the first time such an endeavour has ever been attempted.
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Prof Sephton will reveal how he and his colleagues use images sent back to Earth by the rover to decide the best places to capture the Martian samples. He’ll demonstrate the technology he’ll use to analyse the samples of Martian rock for signs of life when they are brought back to Earth.
April sees the launch of the European Space Agency JUICE mission (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer ). Professor Chris Lintott meets leading scientist Professor Michele Dougherty, who reveals why icy moons like Europa, Ganymede and Callisto are the key places to search for signs of life beyond Earth, and what this has to do with a game of squash.
And stargazing expert Pete Lawrence tells us how this month we can see Venus in a dramatic scene alongside the Hyades and Pleiades clusters.
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Exoplanet expert George Dransfield is in Chile searching for earth-like planets outside our solar system. She reveals how potentially habitable exoplanets are identified, as she carries out essential telescope maintenance in the Atacama desert.
Back in the UK she meets Dr Sean McMahon – an astrobiologist at Edinburgh University investigating how reflected light could be used to actually search for life on exoplanets in the future.
Keep up to date with the show via The Sky at Night website on the BBC iPlayer and or discover more astronomy on the BBC.