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The Sky at Night is a monthly documentary television programme on astronomy produced by the BBC.

The show had the same permanent presenter, Patrick Moore, from its first broadcast on 24 April 1957 until 7 January 2013. The latter date was a posthumous broadcast, which followed Moore’s death on 9 December 2012. This made it the longest-running programme with the same presenter in television history. Many early episodes are missing, either because the tapes were wiped, thrown out, or because the episode was broadcast live and never recorded in the first place. Beginning with the 3 February 2013 edition, the show was co-presented by Lucie Green and Chris Lintott. Since December 2013 Maggie Aderin-Pocock has been a presenter. The programme’s opening and closing theme music is “At the Castle Gate”, from the incidental music to Pelléas et Mélisande, written in 1905 by Jean Sibelius, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham.

This episode:
The team explores what the latest research is revealing about Mars. Could life have once thrived on Mars? What mysterious force is moving large boulders across its dusty surface today? And will a return trip to our neighbouring planet ever be possible? In this exciting episode, we’re blasting off to uncover what the latest research is revealing about the Red Planet.

It’s been 60 years since Mariner 4 sent back the very first images of another world from space. Since then, a fleet of orbiters and rovers have been exploring Mars, uncovering a dramatic history that may not be so different from our own planet Earth.

In the water-rich landscapes of Scotland, Maggie Aderin-Pocock meets Lonneke Roelofs from Utrecht University, who’s been investigating the puzzling movement of enormous Martian boulders. On Earth, such motion would usually be connected with water – but on Mars, something entirely unexpected is at play. And in studying it, scientists have discovered a brand new geological phenomenon.

Maggie also visits the University of St Andrews to meet Dr Claire Cousins, who is looking at ancient Scottish rocks to help future Mars rovers identify and analyse similar formations – ones that might contain microscopic evidence that life once existed on the Red Planet.

While Maggie has journeyed north, Chris Lintott is on a virtual field trip to Mars itself with Professor Sanjeev Gupta at the Data Observatory at Imperial College London. Dr Gupta takes us on a tour with NASA’s Perseverance rover, and the incredible insights the modern rovers are providing about Mars’s history and surface today.

Meanwhile, guest presenter Dr Mekhi Dhesi talks with Dr James Lambert from Pulsar Fusion about the current propulsion options used for space travel. They discuss a possible alternative approach that could reduce travel times and costs, making a mission to Mars, and back again, one step closer. Return missions to Mars could deliver samples from the Martian surface back to Earth laboratories for in-depth analysis and maybe even permit human travel to Mars one day.

Pete Lawrence is at the Milton Keynes Astronomical Society to talk us through Mars observations and what other cosmic wonders to look out for in the lighter summer night skies.

Take a trip with us to discover the secrets of the Red Planet and how we are getting closer and closer to discovering evidence of life on Mars.

Links:
The Sky at Night