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UK astrophysicists, including a team from the University of Birmingham, are gearing up to resume the search for gravitational waves, the ripples in space time caused by some of the universe's most spectacular events.

Space is a risky place. Our planet faces a number of potential threats from asteroids and comets to the impact of space weather on vital technologies.

It was the first potential exoplanet identified by NASA's Kepler Mission ten years ago, and today astronomers including University of Birmingham researchers have confirmed that the discovery made a decade ago is a genuine exoplanet. Confirmation of the exoplanet, known as Kepler-1658-b, was led by University of Hawai`i graduate student Ashley Chontos , and was presented at the fifth Kepler/K2 Science Conference held in Glendale, CA today (March 6th) and published in Astronomical Journal.

Durham University's astrophysicists have been ranked joint sixth in the world for the quality and influence of their research in space science.

A global network of gravitational wave observatories will be upgraded to almost double its sensitivity, the lead science funding agencies of the United Kingdom and United States announced today. The $US30 million Advanced LIGO Plus (ALIGO+) project will improve the two existing Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatories (LIGO) in the United States, and will be included as standard in the new LIGO India facility from the mid-2020s.

Imagine being able to step back in time and see how a great mind of the past understood our world, or experience how food and drink tasted hundreds of years ago.

University of Glasgow researchers are celebrating the announcement of tens of millions of dollars in new funding to advance the science of gravitational wave astrophysics. The US-based National Science Foundation announced today (Thursday 14 February) that Caltech and MIT will share in $20.4m (£15.9m) to upgrade the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), an NSF-funded international collaboration which made history in 2015 after making the first direct detection of gravitational waves.

The world's most sensitive science experiment may be about to get even better, with the UK allocating funds for new research and development work as part of the hunt for gravitational waves. After their historic first round of detections from 2015 onward, Cardiff University researchers, who form part of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory (LIGO), are planning to start their third period of recording data from twin detectors in the United States.

A Cardiff University professor who discovered how to measure the expansion of the universe has been honoured by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) .

Imperial's Professor Gustav Holzegel is a Finalist in the second annual Blavatnik Awards in the UK, winning US$30,000.

A cutting-edge component of what will be the world's largest telescope has passed critical tests. HARMONI, being developed in part by scientists at Durham University, will now move to the detailed design phase.

The Milky Way is on a collision course with a neighbouring galaxy that could fling our Solar System into space.

A relic cloud of gas, orphaned after the Big Bang, has been discovered in the distant Universe. The cloud is unpolluted by stars even 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang and offers new information about how the first galaxies formed.

UK-led research is taking place on the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time, following a successful launch from Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral in the US. An experiment using microscopic nematode worms involving teams of scientists from the Universities of Nottingham, Exeter and Lancaster was among a shipment of cargo and scientific investigations to be delivered to the ISS by the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft following the launch by the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 6.16 pm (UK time) on Wednesday 5 December.

Tiny sensors for measuring the Earth's space weather environment have launched today attached to a South Korean satellite.

A Marsquake detector designed in part by Imperial engineers is set to help reveal Mars' inner structure.

University of Sussex academics are helping to bring the feel and smell of deep space to one of Britain's best-loved educational institutions.

A University of Birmingham academic, Professor Lisa Bortolotti , has applauded the director of the new feature film Out of Blue , Carol Morley, for challenging the widely-held notion that mental illness is a wholly damaging condition that defines the person experiencing it.

The European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter leaves the UK this week for testing in Germany, hosting state-of-the-art instruments on board designed by teams including UCL physicists.

Imperial scientists have sent their prototype magnetometer to ESA for testing, before building the final model for a mission to Jupiter.

Sussex teams inspire local school children with astronomical day At a speed of two centimetres per second, Bruno, the ground demonstration model of the ExoMars Rover, was making slow progress around the floor of Jubilee Building at the University of Sussex.

UCL scientists are taking part in what could be the largest-scale Arctic research expedition ever planned when the German research ship, RV Polarstern , is deliberately lodged into sea ice to drift past the North Pole. Professor Julienne Stroeve who is leading this project and Dr Michel Tsamados (both UCL Earth Sciences) will join five other UK researchers on the 120m-long ice-breaker as it moves with the current in the ice across the central Arctic Ocean from September 2019 to September 2020.

Data gained from a giant telescope in South Africa will help to shape our understanding of the universe and how stars and galaxies are formed.

Professor Jennifer Thomas, Dr Helen Czerski and Professor Hiranya Peiris have been awarded medals and prizes by the Institute of Physics (IOP) for their outstanding, sustained and distinguished contributions to physics.

Ice losses from Antarctica have increased global sea levels by 7.6 mm since 1992, with two fifths of this rise (3.0 mm) coming in the last five years alone.

A Cardiff University academic has spent two years embedded with the teams working on the International Space Station (ISS) programme to compile the most comprehensive study of its work.

The University of Nottingham is working with Brazilian and EU partners to solve atmospheric interference problems that hamper satellite-based positioning in equatorial countries like Brazil.

A 'self-eating' rocket engine which could place small satellites in orbit more easily and more affordably is under development at universities in Scotland and Ukraine. In a paper published in the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets , engineers from the University of Glasgow and Oles Honchar Dnipro National University in Ukraine discuss how they have built, fired, and for the first time throttled up and down an 'autophage' engine which could change how small satellites are sent into space.

Hugh Hunt from Cambridge's Department of Engineering - who recreated the Dambusters raid in 2011 - discusses how engineers made a bomb bounce 75 years ago in an article for The Conversation . Sir Barnes Wallis was a genius engineer who designed a very special bomb during World War II. The idea was that it would bounce across water and destroy German dams along the Ruhr Valley, causing massive flooding and damage to water and hydroelectricity supplies.

A space mission designed to solve fundamental questions about how galaxies and forming planetary systems grow and evolve will be considered by the European Space Agency (ESA).

Professor Sheila Rowan, director of the University of Glasgow's Institute for Gravitational Research (IGR), has been made a Fellow of the Royal Society for her pioneering work on gravitational wave detection.

The NASA InSight mission, which stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, is due to launch from California aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at 12.05pm (BST) today (Saturday 5 May). Image credit: UK Space Agency Oxford University is to contribute to a new mission to Mars, which will be the first to study the heart of the Red Planet and measure 'Marsquakes' from its surface.

Imperial Festival will broadcast a showcase of inspirational talks and behind-the-scenes insights this weekend (28-29 April).

A newly discovered species of ocean plankton, Syracosphaera azureaplaneta , has been named by UCL researchers in honour of the critically acclaimed BBC Blue Planet series and its presenter Sir David Attenborough.