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

Dazzling Venus and much fainter Mars have a close encounter with a young Moon in the constellation of Pisces at UK dusk on Tuesday 31 January. The trio form an equilateral triangle small enough to be encompassed by the field of view of a 7x binocular low in the west-southwest for a couple of hours from 7pm GMT.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has started a summer road trip, skirting dangerous sand as it heads for its next target.

Late winter sunlight hitting the surface of Mars at a low angle contributes to a striking Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of sandy terrain dusted with frost, producing graceful shapes that evoke… a duck?