You can hear an interview with me about The Sun Kings on the cover-mounted CD of the September issue of the BBC’s Sky At Night Magazine.  The magazine also features a superb article by Marcus Chown on the alternatives to dark matter.  Provocatively titled ‘Dark Matter is Dead’ on the cover of the magazine, it delves into the world of modified gravity as an alternative to dark matter.

I have great hopes that dark matter research will reach a watershed next year when the Large Hadron Collider begins collecting data.  It is working in exactly the right region to generate the most favourable dark matter candidate, the Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs).  Should LHC fail to see these, I think modified gravity theories might become much more fashionable.

On the subject of The Sky At Night, don’t forget that I’ll be their special guest at the Herstmonceux Astronomy Festival on 8th September.  See the 31 July 2007 blog entry for more details.

The September issue of BBC Sky at Night magazine is available in your local newsagent now.  You can also visit them online here.