Saturn lies in the outer Solar System, ten times farther away from the Sun than Earth is. It's best known for its fabulous ring system, but it also has an amazing system of moons including ring shepherds and a moon that could possibly sustain primitive life.

European AstroFest 2018, billed as "The Universe under One Roof", was held in the Kensington Conference and Events Centre in London. The conference program included talks on dark matter, gravitational waves, asteroid impacts and wintering in White Mars.

For two days there was no need for a telescope to view the Universe, though you might have decided to buy one for later on. The Universe came to London in the form of European AstroFest – all under one roof in the Kensington Conference and Events Centre. Here is Part 1 of some highlights.

Exploration, famous birthdays and ancient festivals in the time between January 1st and Candlemas at the start of February. Here's a little quiz for you that picks out some highlights in this period.

The year 2017 was favored with dire predictions of destructive giant impacts, and the 15 days of darkness “forecast by NASA” was back again. Unusually, there was no sign of the “Mars will look as big as the full Moon” that's been a regular since 2003. But there's also a new non-event.

2017 was an exciting one for astronomy, full of interesting events and discoveries. There was a fantastic solar eclipse that swept across North America, a star system with 7 Earth-sized planets, a quasar from the early Universe, Cassini's Grand Finale, a dwarf planet with rings, and much more.

Imagine midnight on December 31 – fireworks, friendship and celebration greet a new year. But only if you follow the Gregorian calendar. In the past, a year often didn't start on January 1, and for nearly two billion people it still doesn't. So when does a new year begin?

From March to May you can see the Spring Triangle in northern skies. In summer the Summer Triangle is most prominent, but may be seen all year round in most of the northern hemisphere. There is also a Winter Triangle. But grandest of all is the Winter Hexagon.

Once again images of the heavens came to Greenwich. Photographers of all ages had used skill and imagination to capture our neighbor planets, visiting comets, colorful nebulae, Earthly skies, and distant galaxies. Nearly four thousand entries came from over ninety countries.

Let's look at some doodles celebrating space missions. If you ever search with Google, you may have seen the doodles before. They're drawings and animations celebrating people, events, holidays, inventions and whatnot, incorporating the Google logo in an amusing way.