Space scientist Aderin-Pocock to present bicentenary Ri Christmas Lectures
17 Mar 2025
Space scientist and broadcaster Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock will present this year’s Royal Institution (Ri) Christmas Lectures – marking the event’s 200th anniversary.
The announcement of the 2025 speaker marked the start of Discover 200, a year-long celebration of the lectures’ foundation two centuries ago by Michael Faraday.
Discover 200 also celebrates the bicentenary of two other scientific landmarks, the Royal Institution discourses and of Faraday’s identification of benzene.
Welcoming Dame Maggie as this year’s guest lecturer, director of the Royal Institution Katherine Mathieson pointed out that her field of expertise had a lengthy association with the Ri.
“Here at the Ri we have a longstanding connection with space science, from Warren De La Rue’s first-ever photograph of Jupiter, to Carl Sagan’s seminal Christmas Lectures in 1977, to the towel we sent to the International Space Station for Kevin Fong’s 2015 Lectures,” she commented.
Aderin-Pocock’s focus will include the “time-travelling” James Webb Space Telescope, explaining how the instrument which she helped to develop is providing new perspectives on the Big Bang and enabling science to witness the birth of the?first stars and galaxies that followed.
BBC commissioning head of science Tom Coveney said: “From asteroid YR4 heading towards Earth, to the incredible innovations being made in rocket design, space science is giving us more to talk about than ever.
“Dame Maggie is one of the UK’s leading science communicators as well as an important space scientist: she’s the perfect guide to explore these exciting new frontiers.”
First broadcast by the BBC in 1936 and now shown every year, the Ri Christmas Lectures were begun by Michael Faraday in 1825, who presented 19 of the events. Except for four years during the Second World War, they have run continuously ever since.
Guest speakers have included Nobel Prize winners William and Lawrence Bragg, plus Sir David Attenborough, Carl Sagan, Dame Nancy Rothwell, Hannah Fry, Sir Jonathan Van-Tam, Dame Sue Black and Chris van Tulleken, whose lectures last year received more than 3 million views on BBC Four and iPlayer.
Recently, the final issue of Laboratory News each year has included a lead feature interview with the year’s Ri Christmas Lectures presenter.
Pic: Shutterstock
