Naked Astronomy Enhanced - From the Naked Scientists

Is our galaxy home to aliens? Well, yes, but only if you're talking about clusters of stars. We find out how the Milky Way has stolen globular clusters from other galaxies on this month's Naked Astronomy, as well as explore why our search for ET has been met with an eerie silence. Plus, news of lava channels on Mars, the youngest exoplanet ever found and your questions about gravity, the earlest elements and the evidence for the big bang.

Blocking the light from a star is the only way to see some extra solar planets, as we find out in this month's Naked Astronomy. We discover how small, precise optics can do this job for us, as well as explore some of the current missions studying the Sun, and find out what the recently launched Solar Dynamics observatory will add. Plus, the seasons on Pluto, a comet-like collision confusion and your space science questions!

We find out how to identify an exploding star in this edition of Naked Astronomy, with record holder and super supernovae spotter Tom Boles. Plus, how the Faulkes Telescope Project puts schoolchildren in charge of a 5 million pound telescope, the latest science news and we answer your questions on black holes, star shapes and what it's like to live on Venus!

In this edition of Naked Astronomy, why scientists are making mud in the laboratory to try free a trapped Mars rover, the discs that give birth to new planets, the space equivalent of an ordnance survey map for the stars and how scientists are seeking the origins of life in outer space. Plus, your queries about the cosmos: could Earth capture a new moon, why is the asteroid belt not just a planet and is there a planet beyond Pluto...

In this launch edition of Naked Astronomy, we report on how the Planck probe is seeing the oldest light in the Universe, the Rosetta mission flyby en-route to a distant comet, how LCROSS executed a deft lunar impact and what it revealed, how the LRO has imaged the Apollo landing sites and how Herschel promises to shed some light on the deep dark depths of space. Plus, your cosmological questions answered including, what's a quasar, why are the rings of Uranus vertical, do astronauts age more rapidly and could we brighten up the full moon with a giant lunar reflector...?