Latest News

Professor Roger Blandford is the 2020 winner of the Shaw Prize in Astronomy, awarded in recognition of his seminal contributions to theoretical astrophysics. Prof. Blandford is the Luke Blossom Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and...

Comet C/2020 F8 (SWAN), perhaps the brightest comet we will see this year, is at its best from now until mid-June. It should be visible in from the UK in the north-western sky after sunset, close to the horizon. Along with the Sun, planets, and...

Part of our bicentenary celebrations, the RAS Supermassive podcast celebrates the best of astronomy and geophysics. Join astrophysicist Dr Becky Smethurst and science journalist Izzie Clarke every month to hear about the latest research, the people...

A new study has identified the first known permanent population of asteroids originating from outside our Solar System. The objects are believed to have been captured from other stars billions of years ago, and have been orbiting our Sun in disguise...

The 21 and 22 of April is the peak of a shower of meteors – or shooting stars – known as the Lyrids. All the time small pieces of interplanetary debris – meteoroids – burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere. Most of them are very small, around the size of...

A supernova at least twice as bright and energetic, and likely much more massive than any yet recorded has been identified by an international team of astronomers, led by RAS Research Fellowship holder Dr Matt Nicholl at the University of Birmingham...

The Royal Astronomical Society offers its condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Professor Margaret Burbidge, who has died at the age of 100. A member of the Society for 80 years, Margaret Burbidge was a global leader in astrophysics...

Easter Bank Holiday 2020 The Royal Astronomical Society will be on leave from Friday 10th April until Tuesday 14th April for the Easter break. Any emails and correspondence will be answered on Wednesday 15th April. Enjoy the Easter break.

Skywatchers can see an unusual sight in the evening of 3 April: the planet Venus in front of the Pleiades star cluster. From around 2030 BST, Venus should be very easy to spot in the darkening twilight sky. The planet is about the size of the Earth...

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Council of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) and senior management at the University of Bath have come to the difficult decision to postpone the National Astronomy Meeting (NAM 2020) conference. The...

The RAS has been monitoring the situation with the ongoing global outbreak of COVID-19. Our first priority is to contribute to the international public health effort to reduce and slow the spread of the new coronavirus. We have therefore taken the...

The RAS bicentennial quilt project officially launched at the beginning of October 2019. Since then the society has: Hosted three stitching sessions at the offices in Burlington House where participants have worked on the solar system side of the...