ÌÇÐÄTV

To predict exactly where you can see the northern lights is difficult as conditions can change quickly. The current ‘storm’ is said to be visible from northern England but they are notoriously difficult to predict. However, one thing is for sure, and that is that you are unlikely to see them from a brightly lit city environment – you need to go somewhere dark and look towards the northern horizon (look for the North Star). So, you would preferably be in the countryside away from street lights. Of course it also needs to clear!

Planetary alignments have always occurred; they are times when the planets in the solar system are all roughly positioned in the same direction when viewed from Earth. Given that we understand the orbits of the planets we can predict when these ‘alignments’ will occur. While the planets may look relatively close together in the sky they are of course separated by many millions of miles.

James Blake, Centre for Space Domain Awareness, University of ÌÇÐÄTV, comments on Russia's anti-satellite missile test

With NASA reporting technical issues with the Hubble Space Telescope's payload computer and starting procedures to switch to backup hardware, Professor Peter Wheatley from the Astronomy and Astrophysics Group in our Department of Physics comments on the importance of this 31 year old mission.

NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover is due to land on the surface of the red planet today. It's an exciting period for Mars explorations says Dr David Brown from the Department of Physics, who has commented on the mission.