Deep cobalt colouring comes from drops of liquid gas raining horizontally in 7,000 km/h winds

Two television channels have been fined a total of £22,500 after they featured psychics making claims about singer Michael Jackson and murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

Scientists have solved the mystery of cosmic rays, a stream of highly-energetic sub-atomic particles that pervades the Universe and is responsible for much of the extra radiation dose received by airline passengers.

Today marks the start of the Chinese New Year – the Year of the Snake – and the capital is hosting what the Greater London Authority claims is the largest celebration outside Asia.

Martha Gill has written a fascinating piece in the New Statesman today, collating the scientific evidence for personality differences based on birth month into a set of alternative horoscopes. And there's plenty more where that came from ...

It looks for all the world like a scene from the Nativity, missing only three kings to wander across the snowy fields with their gifts for the Christ-child. For all the world, at least, is right: like Father Christmas, the New York-based photographer Grace Kim traversed the globe to create the single shot here.

Wayne Houchin, 29, was appearing on a show called Closer To The Stars when the guest host, Franklin Barazarte, abruptly doused the magician's head with 'Agua de Florida,' a flammable cologne used in religious rituals

The black hole makes up an enormous 14 per cent of the galaxy's mass

Jackie Chan would like us to know one thing: reports out of Cannes about his imminent retirement from action films were not just premature, they were wrong. “The reporters misunderstood. I will continue to do action, but less dangerous stunts. I'm not retiring.”

Welcome to Planet Improbable, we've been expecting you

Today's Irish Derby will be no easy addition to Ballydoyle star's CV in heavy Curragh going

The American artist Paul Jenkins, whose unorthodox application of paint by an alchemy of pouring techniques brought him association with the great Abstract Expressionists, has died in New York City at the age of 88. Born in a lightning storm in Kansas City in 1923, he started as he meant to go on, enjoying a somewhat epic life which found friendship with luminaries such as Jean Dubuffet, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning et al, whose support of him was as noteworthy for its affection as for its endurance – a distinction not always granted to artists at the top of the pile.

You're carrying a bit of weight round your middle. I can see a Mars bar in your bag and I can tell from a glance that your BMI is waaaay off. Don't tell me – you must be a Gemini.

The UK's night skies are still "saturated" with light pollution, campaigners warned today after a survey suggested half the population cannot see many stars.