{"id":28095,"date":"2025-12-27T09:00:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T09:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/?p=28095"},"modified":"2026-01-13T16:36:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T16:36:15","slug":"watch-the-royal-institution-christmas-lectures-is-there-life-beyond-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/science-mct\/watch-the-royal-institution-christmas-lectures-is-there-life-beyond-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures: Is There Life Beyond Earth?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Starting on 28 December 2025, a new three-part OU\/BBC series,\u00a0<em>The\u00a0Royal Institution Christmas Lectures with Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock<\/em>,\u00a0starts on BBC Four<em>\u00a0<\/em>at 19:00\u00a0and available for catch up on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/b00pmbqq\">BBC iPlayer<\/a>. The 2025 lectures are titled:\u00a0<em>Is\u00a0There\u00a0Life Beyond Earth<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock begins her search for extraterrestrial life with an exploration of our nearest neighbour, and her favourite space rock, the Moon. She then continues her search for alien life with a Grand Tour of our Solar System, asking whether any other planets or moons out there could be habitable.<\/p>\n<p>With the help of the world\u2019s most powerful telescope, she ventures through the Milky Way and into the Universe beyond, on the hunt for alien worlds, celebrating 200 years of the Christmas Lectures.<\/p>\n<p>The lectures were supported by OU academic, <a href=\"https:\/\/profiles.open.ac.uk\/chiaki-crews\">Dr Chiaki Crews<\/a>, who provided expert knowledge during the development of the series.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dr Crews commented on the series:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cIt\u2019s been an enormous privilege to be involved in this OU\/BBC co-production of the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures on their 200-year anniversary. Dame Maggie will cover a huge range of space-related topics in her lectures alongside some really exciting guests, and I hope that everyone enjoys the journey! <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cAlong with reviewing the draft scripts, it has been great fun to work with the OU Connect team to create content that showcases some of the STEM subjects you can study to end up working on space missions \u2013 there are many ways in which people can contribute, without becoming an astronaut!\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2><strong>Supporting Online content:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Visit our\u00a0<strong>Broadcast &amp; Partnerships site<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/connect.open.ac.uk\/ri2025\/\"><strong>OU Connect<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0where you can choose your space mission, meet the scientists behind real discoveries, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/connect.open.ac.uk\/ri2025\/\">explore careers in space science<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This\u00a0series\u00a0was commissioned by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/openuniv.sharepoint.com\/sites\/intranet-learner-discovery-services\/pages\/broadcast.aspx\">Broadcast &amp; Partnerships<\/a>\u00a0and is supported by\u00a0the\u00a0Faculty\u00a0of\u00a0Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, with\u00a0particular\u00a0relevance\u00a0to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/courses\/science\/degrees\/bsc-natural-sciences-earth-sciences-q64-ear\/\">Q64 | BSc (Honours) Natural Sciences \u2013 Astronomy and Planetary Science pathway<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/courses\/science\/certificates\/certificate-in-astronomy-and-planetary-science-s10\/\">S10 | Certificate in Astronomy &amp; Planetary Science<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/postgraduate\/qualifications\/f77\">F77 | MSc Space Science &amp; Technology<\/a>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Commissioned by\u00a0<strong>Dr Caroline Ogilvie,\u00a0Director,\u00a0Broadcast\u00a0&amp;\u00a0Partnerships<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Academic Consultant:\u00a0<strong>Dr Chiaki Crews<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Media Fellow:\u00a0<strong>Dr\u00a0Zhraa\u00a0Alhaboby<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Broadcast Project Manager:\u00a0<strong>Matthew Ray<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Supporting Online Content:\u00a0<strong>Steff\u00a0Easom<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Header image: Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, credit Paul Wilkinson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Starting on 28 December 2025, a new three-part OU\/BBC series,\u00a0The\u00a0Royal Institution Christmas Lectures with Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock,\u00a0starts on BBC Four\u00a0at 19:00\u00a0and available for catch up on\u00a0BBC iPlayer. The 2025 lectures are titled:\u00a0Is\u00a0There\u00a0Life Beyond Earth? Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock begins her search for extraterrestrial life with an exploration of our nearest neighbour, and her favourite [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":28096,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,20],"tags":[232,861,1525,1640],"class_list":["post-28095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-mct","category-tv-radio","tag-bbc","tag-faculty-of-stem","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28095"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28097,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28095\/revisions\/28097"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}