Olympus Mons: Mars' mega volcanoOlympus Mons is the solar system's largest volcano. Astronomers say it holds clues to unraveling the Red Planet's history.
Four massive volcanoes make up the Tharsis Bulge on Mars. The largest of the four, Olympus Mons, is at bottom right.
Ask Astro: Why does the Moon disappear during New Moon?
The inner ring (black) of this illustration shows from above how the Moon orbits Earth, with the Sun illuminating half the Moon at all times. (The Sun is located to the right of Earth and the Moon.) The outer ring (blue) shows the phases of the Moon as we see them from Earth as our satellite orbits around us.
Arecibo radio telescope finally collapses following cable failuresA series of unfortunate events over the past four months doomed the iconic facility, ultimately causing its collapse, which registered as a magnitude-3.6 earthquake.
The famed Arecibo 305-meter radio dish suffered irreparable damage this morning when the observatory’s suspended receiving platform collapsed.
Of course, eventually the book rockets into the 20th century and the Space Race. Like a Netflix series, I had binged my way through the book, and I now had a fresh perspective of just how monumental Armstrong’s step, 50 years ago, onto the lunar surface was. Thankfully we also get to read about the science of the Apollo mission, a subject often overlooked. The book finishes on another hot topic for 2019, humans return to the Moon’s surface.
David Warmflash's book, Moon: An Illustrated History, traces our satellite's past in 100 steps. // David Warmflash
ASTRONOMY MAGAZINE RELAUNCHES INTERACTIVE STAR DOME SKY MAP ON ASTRONOMY.COM
Astronomy’s new Star Dome provides online users with a powerful, customized star atlas for nightly observing.
More than 40 years since they were launched, the Voyager spacecraft are still making discoveries.In a new study, a team of physicists led by the University of Iowa, report the first detection of bursts of cosmic-ray electrons accelerated by shock waves originating from major eruptions on the sun. The detection, made by instruments onboard both the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft, occurred as the Voyagers continue their journey outward through interstellar space, making them the first craft to record this unique phenomenon in the realm between stars.
The Voyager spacecraft continue to make discoveries even as they travel through interstellar space. In a new study, University of Iowa physicists report on the Voyagers’ detection of cosmic ray electrons associated with eruptions from the sun—more than 14 billion miles away. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.