SUNSET: 
Kicking SOFIA's Tires
Take a peek inside an amazing "flying telescope" now being readied for routine observing runs in the stratosphere.
Encounters with Comet Hartley 2
Comet Hartley 2 comes back into moonless view around the morning of November 1st — in time for the spacecraft encounter on November 4th!
How Many Earths?
A team of planet-hunting astronomers argue, based on discovery statistics, that Earth-mass worlds should be orbiting a quarter of stars like the Sun.
How Dark Are Your Skies?
Take part in this year's Great World Wide Star Count, and you'll be joining thousands of other "citizen scientists" in raising dark-sky awareness around the globe.
S&T Introduces SkyWeek App
Sky & Telescope is proud to present its first application for mobile devices.
Mike Lynch's "Exploding" Telescope
Last week a popular Minnesota meteorologist and stargazer got a wake-up call about the power of the Sun.
Cosmology's Distance Record Shattered
It's official: a dim blip spotted last year by the Hubble Space Telescope is a primordial galaxy that blazed to life only about 600 million years after the Big Bang — and that means it's more than 13 billion light-years from Earth.
S&T Articles Online
Over the years, many articles from Sky & Telescope magazine have been made available online free of charge. Here's an index to most of them.
Our "New, Improved" Solar System
Recent computer models suggest a radical yet robust concept: in order to get the Sun's planets and asteroids arranged as they are today, Jupiter must have once been much closer to the Sun.
Crash Scene in the Asteroid Belt
What exactly created the "comet" designated P/2010 A2? Two sets of observations argue that two small asteroids must have collided in early 2009.
Watching a Planet's Death Spiral?
The exoplanet OGLE-TR-113b is already too close to its host star for comfort — and new observations suggest it's being gradually drawn inward to its doom.
Seeing Double, 30 Years Later
On October 10, 1980, two amateur astronomers saw evidence for a satellite around asteroid 216 Kleopatra. Few believed them — but they got the last laugh.
Titan's Hazes: A Rich Brew
With a little help from neighboring Enceladus, Saturn's big moon Titan might well be cooking up an incredible mix of prebiotic molecules in its upper atmosphere.
"Coreshine" in a Cloud's Black Heart
The infrared Spitzer Space Telescope peers into hidden star-forming regions to see the illuminated insides of dark cocoons.
Last Call for Martian Volcanism
Hopeful geologists have pored over thousands of spacecraft images looking for fresh eruptions on Mars, but they've come up empty.
A Deluge of Draconids?
Heavy downpours — and a nearly full Moon, unfortunately — are forecast for next year's Draconid meteor shower.
My "Backyard" Radio Observatory
Nestled in the woods of suburban Boston is a 1,300-acre complex of radio telescopes that have served civilian astronomers — and super-secret defense projects — for nearly 50 years.
Deep-Sky Wonders Again
The November 2010 Deep-Sky Wonders column is rich enough to keep an experienced observer busy for many nights.
Sun's Heliopause: A Moving Target
A NASA spacecraft has found the collision of the Sun's magnetic bubble with interstellar space is more varied and dynamic than anyone had imagined.
"Potentially Habitable" Planet Found
Not too hot, not too cold, Gliese 581g orbits in the liquid-water temperature zone of a dim red-dwarf star just 20 light-years away.
