April 2010

This issue is currently out of stock and will not be reprinted.

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The world's best-selling astronomy magazine offers you the most exciting, visually stunning, and timely coverage of the heavens above. Each monthly issue includes expert science reporting, vivid color photography, complete sky coverage, spot-on observing tips, informative telescope reviews, and much more! All this in an easy-to-understand, user-friendly style that's perfect for astronomers at any level.

Features

How many civilizations lurk in the cosmos?

By Steve Nadis

Fifty years after Frank Drake quantified life in our galaxy, here's where we stand.

pg. 24

Web extra: Listening for a signal

By Liz Kruesi

The SETI Institute and the University of California at Berkeley are using radio dishes to search for life elsewhere in our galaxy.

Secrets of the Kuiper Belt

By S. Alan Stern

The frigid edge of our planetary zone has launched a white-hot revolution in understanding the solar system's origin and evolution.

pg. 30

Web extra: New Horizons at Jupiter

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft began its journey to Pluto January 19, 2006. The most vital part of the mission since then occurred in February 2007, when it flew past Jupiter.

pg. Richard Talcott

Who was Thomas Harriot?

By Dan Falk

England's contemporary of Galileo observed the Sun, the Moon, and Jupiter's satellites through an early telescope.

pg. 44

Web extra: Re-tour Galileo's Italy

By Michael E. Bakich

Experience the life of the great astronomer.

Imaging prehistoric sunrises

By Frank Zullo

With a bit of detective work and graphic manipulation, this astrophotographer visualizes sunrises that prehistoric skywatchers saw.

pg. 50