A lot has happened this month – ESA got a spacecraft into orbit around Mars, but sadly lost the Schiaparelli lander, China launched two new taikonauts to their space station, and the Swarm mission uncovered details from Earth depths. Edward Gomez and I discussed these, and more, this month (though before the full nature of the status of the Schiaparelli lander were available).

In other astronomy news, a scientific paper hit the headlines claiming to have worked out how many galaxies there are in the observable Universe. Cardiff colleague Professor Steve Eales told me quite what he thought of this latest result…

Originally broadcast on 24th October 2016 as part of Pythagoras’ Trousers on Radio Cardiff.