If you didn’t catch last night’s Sky At Night programme then you should try and watch it in the next 7 days on BBC iPlayer or when it is repeated on BBC 2 this Saturday at 13:30*.

The episode is an hour long special called ‘Return to the Moon’. It covers everything from NASA’s Constellation program, the recent lunar eclipse, the hardware NASA are going to be using, the UK’s MoonLITE experiment and some great exchanges on the history of lunar observing (and of course Sir Patrick’s contribution) between Dr Allan Chapman and Sir Patrick. It really is a great episode and one not to miss.

Oh and if you haven’t already seen it you should check out the latest astounding image from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Chris has it over here.

*The BBC’s What’s On listing that I found lists the repeated episode as only 20 minutes long.

Above: NASA’s Orion craft (left) docked with the Altair lunar lander.
Image credit: NASA