Chris Lintott - 4.00pm - On a panel with Erica McAlister hosted by Robin Ince

Chris is a distractible astronomer who specialises in galaxy formation, machine learning including anomaly detection, and occasional planet hunting. These projects usually make use of the Zooniverse citizen science platform, working in collaboration with more than two million volunteers around the world. Chris is a proud and excited member of the collaboration building the Vera Rubin Observatory, which will power the next astronomical revolution.

Chris is also an author, a broadcaster for the BBC's long-running Sky at Night program and involved in all sorts of public engagement and outreach projects. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon or Bluesky for updates and occasional opinions.

Chris Lintott’s latest book is ‘Our Accidental Universe – Stories of Discovery from Asteroids to Aliens’

An astonishing tour of the key astronomical events of the past century, and of all the accidents and human error involved in our pursuit of asteroids, radio waves, new stars and alien life.

The BBC presenter of 'Sky at Night', and Gresham Professor of Astronomy, Chris Lintott, takes us on an astonishing tour of bizarre accidents, big characters, and human error to tell the story of some of the most important astronomical events of the past hundred years.

- Our first views of the earliest galaxies were brought to us by the Hubble Space Telescope when it was pointed at absolutely nothing.

- The ice-covered Enceladus, one of Saturn's nearly one hundred moons, was revealed as a possible habitat for life after a by-chance fly-by of NASA's Cassini probe on a mission elsewhere.

- Pulsars, the spectacular remnants of long-dead massive stars, were discovered as 'scruff' in the data for measurements of the twinkling of possible radio stars.

As new telescopes are built on mountaintops and in deserts around the world, aiming to transform our view of the universe once more, Chris shows us that keeping an open mind will benefit us all - whatever might still be out there for us to find.