Mercury has completed its transit across the Sun and the next chance to see it is 2019

The British government hopes to capture 10 per cent of the world’s space market by 2030 and is laying the groundwork for the country’s first spaceport in anticipation of a growing spaceplane industry and tourism market.

October 2015 marked the 20th anniversary of the first generally accepted detection of a planet orbiting a Sun-like star beyond our Solar System, giving rise to a new class of planet - a 'Hot Jupiter'. It is now one of the dominant types of planet found by spacecraft such as Kepler.