Chris Lintott’s Universe

…for those who haven’t heard, Hubble today lost the use of one of its most important instruments, the Advanced Camera for Surveys. There seems to be little hope of more than minimal repair, and at present there is no plan to extend what is already an extremely complicated shuttle repair mission to fix ACS.

On a more prosaic note, there must be a lot of frustrated astronomers around the world. The deadline for proposals for the next round of HST observations – a deadline which causes stress and huge amounts of work in equal measure – was last Friday.

I’m so looking forward to the next couple of months of working on Sky at Night. We spent the weekend putting the finishing touches to our Mars special, to go out next weekend. This is 40 minutes long on BBC2, and a full hour on BBC4 and well worth it! It contains all of the interviews from my California trip last year, and a long chat with the creator of Spirit and Opportunity, Steve Squyres.

Mon 5th Feb – 00:05 (late Sunday night) on BBC2
Mon 5th Feb – 19:00 Extended edition on BBC4

We also spent a lot of time writing the script for the 50th anniversary show, to be broadcast in April. Those of who who watch probably realise we don’t often have a script, but this is going to be something rather special…I can’t (and won’t) say too much now, but I’m sure you’ll be surprised. Watch this space for more in the meantime.