Life beyond Earth? Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock on the mysteries of space

Loading player...
Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock is a space scientist and science educator who has worked on a number of instruments that are revolutionising our view of the cosmos, including the James Webb Space Telescope. This year she will be giving the Royal Institution Christmas lectures, Britain’s most prestigious public science lectures, in which she will be exploring some of the big questions space science still has to answer. Nicola Davis sat down with Dame Maggie to discuss the lectures, why she is convinced there is life beyond our planet, and her dream of journeying to a distant exoplanet. Madeleine Finlay hears from them both in this Christmas special edition of Science Weekly.. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod
17 Dec 2025 English United Kingdom Science · Nature

Other recent episodes

Was Iran really building a nuclear weapon?

Among the many justifications Donald Trump has presented for the US and Israel attacking Iran has been the supposedly imminent threat posed by its nuclear weapons programme. But how close was the country really to developing an atomic weapon? Ian Sample hears from Kelsey Davenport, the director of non-proliferation policy…
9 Mar 16 min

Will China own the green energy future?

The conflict in the Middle East has sent energy prices soaring, and for countries that import a high proportion of their fuel, it’s a reminder of the perils of energy dependence. As the recipient of almost 90% of Iran’s crude oil, China knows this only too well. Which partly explains…
4 Mar 17 min

Does Trump want to wage an AI-powered war?

In the past three months, Donald Trump’s White House has reportedly used AI twice to effect regime change – once in its capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and more recently to help plan the strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The most recent strikes coincided with…
2 Mar 16 min

Can degrowth save the climate?

Since the 1960s, global GDP has been rapidly rising and living standards have reached record highs. But something else has been rocketing up too – carbon emissions. For years, scientists and economists have been asking: is it possible to grow without heating and polluting the Earth? And as the climate…
25 Feb 18 min