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Social distancing may be keeping you at home, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be exploring the universe at the same time. Scientists from the University of Warwick’s Astronomy and Astrophysics Group show us what you can discover in the skies over the coming weeks, with advice on how you can get involved in astronomy without ever leaving your garden.

You may know that every four years February gets an extra day and we have what’s called a “leap year”. But how are leap years calculated and who worked it out? Dr James McCormac, an expert in astrophysics from the University of Warwick’s Physics Department explains.

It was our pleasure to welcome Prof. Didier Queloz for our first annual Habitability GRP keynote lecture. Prof. Queloz shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics with Michel Mayor and James Peebles, for discovering the first exoplanet orbiting a Sun-like star, 51 Pegasi b. We were treated to a fascinating overview of past, present and future efforts to find life on worlds outside the Solar System. Upcoming missions like JWST and PLATO will probe more effectively than ever before, edging us ever-closer to answering the age-old question: are we alone?

While the world reflects on the first flight to the moon and our future on Mars, Dr Dimitri Veras and James Blake from Warwick's astrophysics department think asteroids – the so-called “minor planets” – deserve recognition. Here’s why.

Dr Chris Manser, a postdoctoral researcher in astrophysics at the University of Warwick, answers this important question posed by a 12 year old.