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By the year 2000, methane levels in the atmosphere were thought to have stabilised. But just a few years later in 2007 these levels suddenly started to rise. Research suggests that the spread of intense farming in Africa may be involved, in particular in tropical regions where conditions are becoming warmer and wetter because of climate change.

The awe-inspiring Japanese Hayabusa 2 space mission achieved another milestone on the other side of the Sun. This remarkable craft touched down on the asteroid Ryugu, firing a bullet into the surface, and collecting samples of rock for eventual delivery to Earth.

What can singing mice from the depths of the Costa Rican cloud forests tell us about vocal interaction? Through these tiny mammals, with their operatic song, we are being taught about how we humans coordinate speech and how the brain accomplishes this. The goal is to design new therapeutic methods for those suffering from conditions which limit vocal interaction.

We turn our gaze skywards to tackle three questions about what’s going on above us. Three year old Zac from the UK wants to know what clouds feel like – if they’re supposedly like steam, then how are they cold?

Listener Agnese is looking beyond the cloud base and up to our nearest neighbour. She’d like to know why it is that we can see the Moon during the day. And we head out to one of the longest-running and largest steerable telescopes in the world: The 76-metre Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory in the UK. Here, she finds out the answer to Sandeep from India’s extra-terrestrial question: Could aliens find us?

(Photo: Thai swamp buffalo in peat swamp around lagoon with sunset background. Credit: Getty Images)