Mark Thompson

Science broadcaster and author. Mark is known for his tireless enthusiasm for making science accessible, through numerous tv, radio, podcast and theatre appearances, and books. He was a part of the award-nominated BBC Stargazing LIVE TV Show in the UK and his Spectacular Science theatre show has received 5 star reviews across UK theatres. In 2025 he is launching his new podcast Cosmic Commerce and is working on a new book 101 Facts You Didn't Know About Deep Space In 2018, Mark received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of East Anglia.

You can email Mark here

Recent Articles

What is the Most Common Type of Planet in the Galaxy?

April 30, 2026

Astronomers now believe there is at least one planet for every star in the Milky Way but new research has revealed a deeply unsettling twist in that picture. The most common planets in our Galaxy, it turns out, are almost entirely absent around the most common stars. Using data from NASA's TESS satellite, researchers found that the small, faint stars that make up the vast majority of the Milky Way seem to host rocky super Earths in abundance, but virtually no sub Neptunes, the planet type previously thought to be plentiful. The finding doesn't just refine existing theories of planet formation, it rewrites them.
How do you study something you can never step outside of?

April 30, 2026

An international team of astrophysicists has just released one of the largest cosmological datasets ever assembled. A mouthwatering 2.5 petabytes of simulated universe, freely available to researchers anywhere in the world. Built using a supercomputer and a suite of simulations called FLAMINGO, the data models how matter has evolved since the Big Bang, tracing everything from individual galaxies to the vast cosmic web that stretches across billions of light years.
What does it take to call home from the Moon?

April 30, 2026

When NASA's Artemis II crew swung around the Moon in April, the world watched in extraordinary detail and a breakthrough laser communications system was the reason why. Bolted to the outside of the Orion capsule, a compact optical terminal beamed 484 gigabytes of data back to Earth using invisible infrared light, outpacing traditional radio systems by a factor of tens. The result was some of the most vivid imagery ever captured in deep space, and a technology demonstration that will fundamentally change how humanity communicates beyond Earth.
The Last Dance of a Dying Star

April 29, 2026

Every star that has ever lived has been slowly spinning down, losing rotational energy across billions of years until, at the end, it collapses. But new research from Kyoto University has revealed that the story is far stranger than that. Some stars, in their final moments, don't slow down at all, they spin up and nobody predicted it.
The Universe Builds Stars by the Book

April 29, 2026

Stars are not born by chance. New research shows that the mass of a star cluster dictates exactly what kinds of stars it will produce from cool, dim dwarfs to blazing stellar giants ten times the mass of our Sun. It is a discovery that rewrites our understanding of how galaxies grow and evolve, and raises questions that astronomers will be grappling with for years to come.
Your Brain Thinks It Knows Where It Is…. Even When It Doesn’t

April 29, 2026

Astronauts take time to adjust how firmly they grip and handle objects when moving between Earth and space, because the brain continues making predictions based on whichever gravitational environment it has most recently adapted to. Research from the Université catholique de Louvain reveals that this adjustment process works in both directions and sheds new light on how the brain anticipates and manages the risk of making mistakes.
The Sun's Impossible Floating Mountains

April 28, 2026

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research have produced the most detailed simulations ever of solar prominences. These vast clouds of cooler plasma suspended in the Sun's scorching outer atmosphere have often perplexed solar astronomers. Their research reveals that two separate processes work together to keep these structures alive, and could one day help us predict the violent eruptions that drive dangerous space weather here on Earth.
Our Galaxy Has a Hot Side and Now We Know Why

April 28, 2026

Our Galaxy's halo of hot gas is measurably warmer on one side than the other and a team of scientists have found the culprit. The gravitational pull of the Large Magellanic Cloud is drawing the Milky Way slowly southward, compressing the gas in its path and heating it up, much like a piston in an engine. The discovery solves a puzzle that has intrigued astronomers since the temperature difference was first detected in 2024.
Could Light Alone Get Us to Another Star?

April 28, 2026

Using nothing but a laser beam, scientists at Texas A&M University have demonstrated that tiny engineered devices can be lifted and steered in three dimensions without any physical contact. This breakthrough could one day form the basis of a propulsion system capable of reaching our nearest neighbouring stars in decades rather than centuries.
The Ancient Art That Could Transform Space Communication

April 28, 2026

Researchers at the Institute of Science Tokyo have developed an origami inspired foldable antenna for CubeSat satellites that weighs just 64 grams yet in orbit, it deploys to two and a half times its stowed size. The antenna folds away neatly for launch and deploys automatically in space, achieving high gain communications performance from a package small enough to fit in your pocket and could one day support missions as far away as the Moon.
The Universe is Bending Light, and Astronomers Need Your Help to Find it

April 26, 2026

Einstein told us that massive objects bend light and he was of course, right. Across the universe, giant galaxies are acting as natural telescopes, warping and distorting the light of objects behind them into spectacular arcs and rings. Now the Euclid space telescope wants your help to find them and the scale of the hunt is unlike anything attempted before.
Mining the Solar System to Build a New World

April 26, 2026

If humans are ever going to live permanently on Mars, someone is going to have to work out where all the raw materials, the food, they oxygen or the material for the structures to name just a few. A new study has tackled that unglamorous but absolutely critical question and the answer involves robots, asteroids, and one of the most complex supply chains ever designed.
The Planet Haul That Changes Everything.

April 26, 2026

NASA's planet hunting telescope has been busy. A new study has just sifted through the light of over 83 million stars and emerged with more than 11,000 potential worlds, including a confirmed giant planet orbiting a distant star. The results don't just add to our catalogue of planets. They fundamentally change where we look for them.
Two Worlds Where the Sun Never Moves

April 23, 2026

One side is scorched to over 200 degrees, while the other is plunged into a darkness so cold it falls below minus 200. Welcome to TRAPPIST-1b and 1c, two rocky worlds that have just revealed the first ever climate maps of Earth sized planets beyond our Solar System. The James Webb Space Telescope has been watching, and what it found tells us something profound about where life might, and might not exist in our Galaxy.
The Stars Feeding our Galaxy’s Monster

April 23, 2026

At the heart of our Galaxy lurks a supermassive black hole four million times the mass of our Sun. For decades, astronomers have watched mysterious gas clouds drifting towards it on almost identical paths, wondering where they came from and why. Now, a team of researchers think they have finally cracked the puzzle and the answer involves two massive stars locked in a violent embrace!
Stardust in the Clouds of Venus.

April 15, 2026

Venus has been hiding a secret for fifty years. Just below its main cloud deck sits a mysterious layer of haze that spacecraft first detected in the 1970s and nobody could explain where it came from. Now a research team in Japan has finally cracked it, and the answer comes from the last place most people would think to look!
Magnetism Frozen in Time.

April 15, 2026

Every star you've ever looked at is hiding a magnetic secret and it may have been hiding it since birth. A new theoretical study has connected, for the first time, the magnetic fields detected deep inside dying red giants with the magnetism found at the surfaces of their long dead remnants. These fields may be ancient fossils, born early in a star's life and surviving billions of years of violent transformation completely intact.
The Sharpest Eyes on the Sun.

April 15, 2026

The Sun is the most studied star in the universe, yet some of its most violent behaviour remains stubbornly out of reach. Solar flares, explosive eruptions that can disrupt satellites, knock out power grids and bathe astronauts in radiation release enormous bursts of X-rays that carry vital clues about what drives them. Now, a team of Japanese engineers has built the sharpest X-ray telescope ever to fly on a solar mission, and the technology it has pioneered could soon fit inside a satellite the size of a shoebox.
A New Eye Opens at the Top of the World.

April 15, 2026

Thirty four years ago, a group of Cornell scientists looked at a remote Chilean mountaintop and imagined what might be built there one day. That day has arrived. The Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope has just opened its eyes on the universe from one of the most extreme observatory sites ever chosen, and the science it promises to deliver from the first moments after the Big Bang to the hidden nurseries of newborn stars.
The Incredible Shrinking Neutrino.

April 14, 2026

They are the most abundant particles in the universe, yet we barely know they exist. Neutrinos stream through everything, through walls, through planets and even through you…. in their billions every second, leaving no trace. We've known for decades that they have mass, but pinning down exactly how much has defeated physicists for years. Now, the most sensitive experiment ever built has pushed our knowledge to a new frontier, and what it found raises a profound question about why these ghostly particles are so extraordinarily light.