SUNSET: 
The Red Planet We Never Knew
A new DVD entertains with a 50-year-old look at Mars.
Mira's Marvelous Tail
Mira, the closest and brightest of the red long-period variable stars, has thrown off a gassy hood and a comet-like tail so big that if you could see them, they would overflow your telescope's field of view.
One Less "Possibility of Life"?
Just because Saturn's moon Enceladus has active geysers doesn't mean it harbors alien life. That's the take-home message from an upcoming scientific paper.
Bright Galaxies You Can't See
Astronomers have found massive, luminous infrared galaxies 12 billion light-years away. It's not at all clear how they got there.
Uranus and Neptune in 2007
Sky & Telescope diagramThe solar system beyond Saturn has been much in the news in the last year, but just three of its denizens are visible in amateur telescopes. Binoculars readily show Uranus and, with a little more difficulty, Neptune. Pluto normally needs at least an 8-inch telescope and a…
Risky Business
Two American collectors manage — barely — to get in and out of Colombia with fragments from a fresh meteorite fall.
A Great-Grandfather Star
By measuring radioactive decay the same way geologists date rocks on Earth, researchers have pegged the age of a very ancient star in the Milky Way — independently of any other knowledge or assumptions about astronomy.
The Coolest Dwarf
The infrared deep-sky survey now being carried out by the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope is only 5% done, but already astronomers looking at its data have found the coolest solitary brown dwarf ever seen.
New Galaxy Redshift Record
Subtle wisps of galaxies with a redshift around 10 have been detected from the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, claims a group of Caltech astronomers.
"New Star" in Vulpecula
On August 8, 2007, variable-star observer Hiroshi Abe discovered a 9th-magnitude nova in Vulpecula. The AAVSO seeks your observations.
Do Sunspots Forecast the Rain?
A team of researchers claim that sunspot activity might accurately forecast rain in Africa.
Do Sunspots Cycles Forecast the Rain?
A team of researchers claim that sunspot activity might accurately forecast rain in Africa.
Galaxy Monster Mash
Astronomers using a battery of ground- and space-based telescopes have stumbled upon the most massive galaxy smashup ever seen.
Stellafane Auction Begins
A spirited bidding war is now under way for two precious artifacts: a prototype 13-mm Nagler eyepiece and Steve O'Meara's Tele Vue Genesis refractor.
Hubble Lifts the Veil
New images from the Hubble Space Telescope show parts of the Veil Nebula in Cygnus in unprecedented detail.
Stars that Smoke
Astronomers have resolved carbon soot clouds around one of the sky's best-known R Coronae Borealis–type variable stars.
The Most Puffed-Up Planet
Astronomers have discovered possibly the biggest exoplanet yet. TrES-4 is about 70% wider than Jupiter and has the average density of balsa wood.
Prepare for the Perseids
August is the best month to view meteors from the Northern Hemisphere. And conditions are ideal this year, with activity peaking on the new-Moon night of Sunday–Monday, August 12–13.
