Features

Mercury reveals its hidden side

NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft found features on Mercury unlike any seen elsewhere in the solar system.

Web extra: Message from the innermost planet

The MESSENGER spacecraft flew past Mercury January 14, giving scientists their first close-up view of the planet in 33 years.

Earth’s troubled adolescence

When a Mars-sized object rammed Earth and created the Moon, it launched a sequence of events that made our planet what it is today.

Could changing channels tune into alien civilizations?

A vast antenna farm in the Australian Outback may pick up the equivalent of talk radio and TV from other solar systems.

Web extra: Fly over and above the Square Kilometer Array

An international team is designing a radio telescope 100 times more sensitive than any of its kind. Here’s what it will look like.

Inside NASA’s Deep Space Network

If you think talking to a spacecraft across the solar system is a challenge, try juggling 30 of them. Here’s how NASA’s far-flung missions phone home.

Web extra: Talking to spacecraft

Hear about the state of the art from the program manager of NASA’s Deep Space Network and the Spitzer Space Telescope’s mission manager.

How to observe dark nebulae

Challenge yourself to find a dozen cold, dark clouds among the stars.

Web extra: View dark nebulae with your Meade scope

Use this Autostar tour with your computerized Meade telescope.

Tele Vue’s new eyepiece field tested

The Ethos offers an ultrawide field of view at high power.

Choose the dome that’s right for you

Set up one of these three domes, and next time you observe you’ll feel like a pro.

Departments

This month in Astronomy
Beautiful universe
Letters
Bob Berman’s strange universe
Stephen James O’Meara’s secret sky
News
The sky this month
Phil Harrington’s binocular universe

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