July 2003

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.

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Features

Goldilocks and the three planets

by
Naomi Lubick

What was it about Earth’s atmosphere that made our planet “just right” for life, whle Mars and Venus became inhospitable? Although the phrase “greenhouse gases” has taken on threatening overtones in recent years, these gases historically were responsible for creating an Earth (and perhaps even a Mars) capable of sustaining life.

Trial by fire

by
Bob Berman

The breakup of the shuttle Columbia is only the latest in a string of space-flight mishaps that range from the tragic to the absurd. Bob Berman argues that risk is inevitable in the quest to go where no one has gone before.