February 2009

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The world's best-selling astronomy magazine offers you the most exciting, visually stunning, and timely coverage of the heavens above. Each monthly issue includes expert science reporting, vivid color photography, complete sky coverage, spot-on observing tips, informative telescope reviews, and much more! All this in an easy-to-understand, user-friendly style that's perfect for astronomers at any level.

Features

How to make a solar system

By Adam Frank

Mysterious gaps in dusty disks around other stars may explain the way our solar system looks.

pg. 28

Web extra: How protoplanets create gaps in dusty disks

By Daniel Pendick

Watch as a new planet forms and cuts a gap in the dusty disk of its birth. Understanding the details of this process could help explain the evolution of solar systems.

Will dark energy tear the universe apart?

By Liz Kruesi

Our cosmic fate depends on the biggest unknown in science.

pg. 34

Web extra: Future experiments to probe dark energy

By Liz Kruesi

Ground and space-based future detectors may give astronomers the information they need to determine what dark energy is.

Understanding the weirdest stellar explosions

By Laura Kinoshita

Stars swallowing planets - or each other - could explain surprising stellar outbursts.

pg. 48

Web extra: Observing a bizarre stellar outburst