Looking Up by Bob Eklund

CURIOSITY BEGINS DRIVING AT BRADBURY LANDING – Mars rover Curiosity has begun driving from its landing site, which scientists have named for the late author Ray Bradbury. Curiosity’s first drive on the Martian surface combined …[READ MORE]

“CECI N’EST PAS UNE PIPE” – Just as René Magritte wrote “This is not a pipe” on his famous painting, this is also not a pipe. It is, however, a picture of part of a …[READ MORE]

SIGNS CHANGING FAST FOR VOYAGER AT SOLAR SYSTEM EDGE — Two of three key signs of changes expected to occur at the boundary of interstellar space have changed faster than at any other time in …[READ MORE]

CURIOSITY ROVER CAUGHT IN THE ACT OF LANDING – An image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) captured the Curiosity rover still connected to its 51-foot-wide …[READ MORE]

STUDENT-BUILT SATELLITES: A NEW WAY TO DO SPACE RESEARCH – Eleven tiny satellites called CubeSats will accompany a spy satellite into Earth orbit on Aug. 2, inaugurating a new type of inexpensive, modular nanosatellite designed …[READ MORE]

ROVER “CURIOSITY” TO LAND ON MARS AUG. 5 NASA’s most advanced planetary rover is on a precise course for an early August landing beside a Martian mountain to begin two years of unprecedented scientific detective …[READ MORE]

A FIFTH MOON ORBITING PLUTO – A team of astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope is reporting the discovery of another moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The moon is estimated to be irregular …[READ MORE]

DARK MATTER DETECTED BY GRAVITATIONAL LENSING – Scientists have, for the first time, directly detected part of the invisible dark matter skeleton of the universe, where more than half of all matter is believed to …[READ MORE]

A HALF-MILLION ASTEROIDS have orbits that could someday take them close to our home planet. We’ve been fortunate that none have hit the Earth since 1908, when an asteroid or comet struck the Siberian forests …[READ MORE]

Few nighttime sights offer more drama than the full Moon rising over the horizon. Now imagine that instead of the Moon, a gas giant planet spanning three times more sky loomed over the molten landscape …[READ MORE]