When a delivery truck drops off its final package of the day, it isn’t abandoned – it’s prepped for more deliveries the next day. And it’s the same thing with several spacecraf

Giant spiders crawl around the walls of an ancient city on Mars. And if that doesn’t sound like the plot of a bad movie, then what does? It turns out, though, that this plot is true – in a

The Moon and three other bright lights form a beautiful diamond in tomorrow’s dawn sky. Going clockwise from the Moon, the points of the diamond are the planet Jupiter, which is the brightest of

The Sun has been feisty this year. It’s produced some monster storms that have pelted Earth with radiation and charged particles. That’s disrupted some communications, air travel, and othe

Stars aren’t always what they seem. Consider the two brightest stars of Lyra. The constellation’s leading light is Vega. It looks 20 times brighter than the second-ranked star, Sulafat. Bu

In the early 20th century, much of the world had “Mars fever.” Percival Lowell had mapped what he called “canals” on Mars, built by a dying civilization. H.G. Wells published &

Army and Navy radio stations around the world had something extra to listen for 100 years ago this week: Mars. The Red Planet was passing closer to Earth than it had in centuries. A retired astronomer

A century ago, most scientists thought Mars was devoid of animal life. Many thought it might contain plants, or at least primitive life such as lichens.But in popular culture, Mars was abuzz with lif

The Moon will squeeze past the planet Saturn tonight. They climb into view about 9:30 or 10. Saturn looks like a bright star. As seen from most of the United States, it’ll pass just a fraction o

A European mission to study the moons of Jupiter is getting some help. Even though it was launched on Europe’s most powerful rocket, it’s so heavy that it needs some extra “kicks&#82