News

Institute for Pale Blue Dots renamed in honour of Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan’s highly inspirational 1980 TV series “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage” launched many a career in astronomy. Now the Carl Sagan Institute: Pale Blue Dot and Beyond — a research institution devoted to the pursuit of Sagan’s challenge to explore other worlds, to learn if they, too, contain life — was unveiled at Cornell University on May 9th.

News

Exo-asteroid debris shows how water reached Earth

New research strongly suggests that water delivery via asteroids or comets is likely taking place in many other planetary systems, adding further support to the possibility water can be delivered to Earth-like planets via such bodies to create a suitable environment for the formation of life.

Book Reviews

Pearls of the Southern Skies

Have you encountered the ‘War and Peace Nebula’, the ‘Furious Dancer Galaxy’ or the ‘Carina Smile Nebula’? These objects and a wealth of Southern Hemisphere deep-sky treasures feature in this well-written landscape-format coffee table book, says Nik Szymanek.