The notion of planets orbiting stars other than the sun is not new but advances in technology is bringing us ever closer to finding alien life, explains Mark Evans

STANDING up, as she’s about to leave, Louise Phillips, author of the just-named Irish Crime Novel of the Year The Doll’s House may have cried as she told me about the dark place where her novels originate.

It may be a case of sheer, unadulterated “lunar-cy”, but an out of this world find worth as much as €4m could be buried in one of the country’s largest rubbish dumps.