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The Best Episodes of The Sky at Night

Every episode of The Sky at Night ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of The Sky at Night!

Best episode
S49E8 Fallout From Deep Impact
9.810 votes
Worst episode
S65E9 Telescopes through Time
6.48 votes
Top season
Season 49
9.8avg
Binge time
19h 38m
849 episodes
BestEpisodes
WorstEpisodes
BestSeasons
AllEpisodes

Seasons70

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Episode Rankings

  1. #1 Fan Favorite
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    The Sky at Night Season 49 Episode 8 - Fallout From Deep Impact
    9.8/10(10 votes)

    S49:E8

    On 4 July NASA hopes to send an impactor into the comet 9P/Tempel-1. Patrick Moore talks to the world's leading comet experts about the fallout from this destructive act. Chris Lintott reports from Palomar Observatory in California, where astronomers will be eagerly watching the comet to see what happens when Deep Impact hits its mark.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  2. The Sky at Night Season 51 Episode 13 - Sputniks Children
    9.7/10(10 votes)

    S51:E13

    Dr Chris Lintott finds out how British technology is leading the way in satellite science, while Sir Patrick Moore investigates the threat from space debris that astronauts face in space.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  3. The Sky at Night Season 53 Episode 1 - Light Fantastic
    9.7/10(10 votes)

    S53:E1

    Sir Patrick Moore charts the development of the telescope over four centuries and fasts forward to meet the astronaut who repaired the Hubble Space Telescope. Dr Chris Lintott visits some modern day astronomical leviathans.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  4. The Sky at Night Season 51 Episode 3 - Stunning Saturn
    9.8/10(9 votes)

    S51:E3

    Chris shows us how to see Saturn with a small telescope, while Patrick finds out the latest from the Cassini mission currently orbiting the planet.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  5. The Sky at Night Season 51 Episode 5 - 50Th Anniversary - Birthday Party
    9.8/10(9 votes)

    S51:E5

    The Sky at Night 50th birthday party. Patrick reflects on how astronomy has changed over the last half century, with amusing clips from the archives.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  6. The Sky at Night Season 54 Episode 1 - Twinkle Twinkle
    9.8/10(8 votes)

    S54:E1

    January provides the perfect opportunity to observe stars, planets and galaxies. Sir Patrick Moore takes us on a tour of the winter sky, looking at twinkling 'variable stars' with Dr John Mason, and at planets and galaxies with Pete Lawrence and Paul Abel. Sir Patrick and Dr Chris Lintott also point out the best objects to observe if you've had a telescope for Christmas.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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    The 20 WORST Episodes of The Sky at Night

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  7. The Sky at Night Season 51 Episode 14 - Last Man on the Moon
    9.3/10(11 votes)

    S51:E14

    On 14th December 1972, Captain Eugene Cernan left the Moon to return to Earth. He had no idea that, 25 years later, he would still be the last man to have left his footprints on the lunar surface. Dr Chris Lintott travels to the Johnson Space Centre to talk to the Commander of Apollo 17 about his memories of being on the Moon. Sir Patrick Moore looks at lunar samples brought back by the astronauts and talks to NASA scientists about what they discovered.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  8. The Sky at Night Season 57 Episode 1 - Reaching for the Stars
    9.8/10(7 votes)

    S57:E1

    For more than half a century Sir Patrick Moore encouraged people to look up at the wonders of the night skies. Fittingly in this programme, recorded just before his death, he and his team offer advice to those who are discovering astronomy for the very first time. How should they set up their new telescopes and what should they seek out in the winter skies as they begin to share Sir Patrick's lifelong passion for the stars?

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  9. The Sky at Night Season 46 Episode 7 - The Birth and Death of the Universe
    9.2/10(10 votes)

    S46:E7

    In this historic interview Patrick Moore talks to Professor Stephen Hawking about his cosmological theories and finds out how our Universe started.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  10. The Sky at Night Season 56 Episode 12 - Mercury and the Moon
    9.3/10(9 votes)

    S56:E12

    The tiny planet Mercury is in the morning sky and Sir Patrick Moore talks about the latest news from Messenger, the spacecraft which is over Mercury at the moment. Mercury is often compared to the moon, which was last visited by man in December 1972. Forty years on, Dr Chris Lintott looks at the legacy of that mission, Apollo 17, and what it has been able to tell us about the moon.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  11. The Sky at Night Season 40 Episode 11 - Hunt The Planet
    9.6/10(7 votes)

    S40:E11

    Patrick Moore tells the story of the race to discover Neptune 150 years ago.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  12. The Sky at Night Season 33 Episode 10 - Neptune - Voyager's Last Planet
    9.4/10(7 votes)

    S33:E10

    Voyager 2, launched in 1977, has already passed by the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus, all of which have provided plenty of surprises. Voyager has now passed Neptune, sending back remarkable new information about the outermost planet. In this programme, Patrick Moore is joined by Dr Garry Hunt and other experts from the American team to summarise what has been discovered about this lonely, remote world.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  13. The Sky at Night Season 19 Episode 5 - The Outer Planets
    9.0/10(7 votes)

    S19:E5

    This month the three outermost planets - Uranus, Neptune and Pluto - are all on view, even though they are faint. Each has its own special points of interest; and Patrick Moore talks about these remote members of the Sun's family.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  14. The Sky at Night Season 51 Episode 4 - Time Lord - 50Th Anniversary
    8.5/10(10 votes)

    S51:E4

    Celebrating 50 years of The Sky at Night, Patrick 'travelled' back to the show's first ever recording in 1957. The episode then jumped forward to 2057 where the 'virtual' Patrick talked to Dr Chris Lintott and Dr Brian May on Mars. Jon Culshaw's turn as a younger Patrick was uncanny as he recreated Patrick's first words on The Sky at Night.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  15. The Sky at Night Season 63 Episode 1 - Beyond Pluto
    8.6/10(7 votes)

    S63:E1

    On 1 January 2019, Nasa's New Horizons probe notched up another historic first: the first ever Kuiper belt fly-by. Its target was 2014 MU69, a chunk of ice and rock about four billion miles (approximately 6.4 billion kilometres) from Earth, dubbed Ultima Thule, a Latin phrase meaning a distant, unknown region. It is the most distant fly-by in history, and it is believed the data New Horizons gathers will shed new light on the solar system's early days. Chris Lintott reports from the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland to bring the latest news and pictures from this extraordinary mission.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  16. The Sky at Night Season 41 Episode 9 - Saturn Visitor
    8.2/10(11 votes)

    S41:E9

    A new probe is being launched toward Titan, Saturn's largest satellite.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  17. The Sky at Night Season 67 Episode 3 - The UK Space Race
    8.4/10(7 votes)

    S67:E3

    The Sky at Night team investigates the incredible science and engineering helping the UK to blast into space. We are now one of the biggest satellite building nations in the world, and the race is on to be the first company to successfully launch a rocket into orbit from British soil.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  18. The Sky at Night Season 1 Episode 1 - Arend-Roland Comet
    8.1/10(12 votes)

    S1:E1

    Patrick Moore tells you what to look for in the night sky during the coming month. The first of a regular monthly series.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  19. The Sky at Night Season 67 Episode 4 - Is There Anybody Out There?
    8.2/10(7 votes)

    S67:E4

    For July 2023, the team investigate the controversial world of alien communication. The search for life on other planets is one of the most fascinating subjects in science. But what is less reported is the work being done around the world to determine what happens next.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  20. The Sky at Night Season 68 Episode 3 - Cosmic Ghosts
    8.0/10(8 votes)

    S68:E3

    This month, The Sky at Night has a spooky twist. Across the universe, there are hidden objects that we can’t see, but astronomers and scientists still believe they’re out there. To find out how we know that these mysterious objects exist, the team are going ghost-hunting. Cosmic ghost-hunting.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  21. The Sky at Night Season 67 Episode 5 - Black Holes: Searching for the Unknown
    7.9/10(9 votes)

    S67:E5

    For August 2023, The Sky at Night team investigate the science of black holes and discover the incredible techniques being used to uncover their secrets, and even help us answer bigger questions about our universe. Chris meets Dr Becky Smethurst at the University of Oxford to learn how a black hole forms from the death of a star. He also investigates whether black holes deserve their menacing portrayal in popular culture. He describes what would happen if we got too close to the event horizon and how black holes might actually play a role in lighting up the universe. Maggie explores how scientists are trying to understand more about black holes by meeting Dr Tessa Baker, who works on LIGO. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory is one of the world’s largest physics experiments and is not your usual type of observatory; instead of looking - it listens. The next observation run has just started, and Maggie learns what they are hoping to find.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  22. The Sky at Night Season 67 Episode 6 - The Very Large Telescope
    7.9/10(8 votes)

    S67:E6

    The Very Large Telescope has been responsible for some of the greatest astronomical breakthroughs. For September 2023, the team travels to the heart of the Atacama to explore one of the most advanced observatories in the world, a site at the forefront of astronomy.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  23. The Sky at Night Season 59 Episode 11 - The Real Star of Bethlehem: A Christmas Special
    7.8/10(6 votes)

    S59:E11

    Astronomers have been fascinated by the idea of the Star of Bethlehem for centuries. Did it exist? And if so, what was it? The list of candidates includes some of the most exciting objects in the night sky - supernovae, comets, meteors and unusual alignments of the giant planets. In this surprising and entertaining Christmas special the Sky at Night team go in search of the potential causes of the Star of Bethlehem. The team explore the possibilities, investigating the nature of the phenomena and digging through the historical records including Babylonian clay tablets and ancient Chinese manuscripts, to reconstruct events in the night sky 2,000 years ago. Maggie Aderin-Pocock goes hunting for supernovae using the most powerful laser in Britain, and discovers that these mighty explosions caused by the death of stars can shine brighter than the moon in our sky. Chris Lintott reconstructs the night sky over Jerusalem at the time of Jesus's birth, discovering a once-in-a-millennium conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter that was first suggested as a cause of the star by the great astronomer Johannes Kepler in 1604. Armed with his telescope, Pete Lawrence searches out the features of the night sky we can observe today that may provide clues to the origin of the Star of Bethlehem. Professor Alan Fitzsimmons explains why the sudden appearance of a comet in the night sky has always been seen as an omen of great events on Earth. Dallas Campbell goes in search of the historical and archaeological records that can shed light on the identity of the star. Finding Babylonian tablets in the vaults of the British Museum and ancient Chinese texts that record all the unusual events in the night sky 2,000 years ago, including a bright new star that appeared for 70 days in the year 5BC.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  24. The Sky at Night Season 1 Episode 4 - Episode 4
    9.0/10(1 votes)

    S1:E4

    Patrick Moore shows what to look for in the night sky during the coming month.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  25. The Sky at Night Season 1 Episode 9 - Episode 9
    9.0/10(1 votes)

    S1:E9

    Patrick Moore shows what to look for in the sky during the coming month.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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Best Episodes Summary

"Fallout From Deep Impact" is the best rated episode of The Sky at Night. It scored 9.8/10 from 10 votes. Written and directed by Unknown, it aired on July 10, 2005. This episode scored 0.1 points higher than the second highest rated, "Sputniks Children".

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