Professor Mark Sims on the discovery that Beagle 2 made it to the surface

On Wednesday, March 4th, planets Venus and Mars will be easy naked-eye objects in the western sky at dusk, but in a telescope you’ll have the added bonus of spotting gas giant Uranus very close to Venus.

The drill at the end of the Curiosity Mars rover’s robot arm is back in action after being sidelined for more than a year by a mechanical problem. A new technique was successfully tested 20 May after months of engineering tests on Earth.

These layered hills, seen in this false-colour image of a portion of Arabia Terra on Mars, may possibly have a watery origin. Arabia Terra is a highland region in Mars’ northern hemisphere, dating back to the red planet’s Noachian geological era, around four billion years ago.