Articles

Emily Lakdawalla

This is Mars is a stunning book that treats the HiRISE camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as an art photographer, exploring the variety of shapes and patterns created by wind, water, impacts, and gravity on the Martian surface.

Casey Dreier

This episode highlights the other big idea in Cosmos: that we are profoundly connected with the universe around us. Our constituent parts are forged in the bellies of massive stars; we exist through their deaths.

Emily Lakdawalla

I've got some books to recommend on astrobiology, planet Earth and its living creatures, impact cratering, and Mars rovers.

Emily Lakdawalla

Alien Seas is ostensibly a book about

Casey Dreier

Sagan makes us confront the limitations of our mortality given the immensities of space and time presented to us by the cosmos.

Casey Dreier

We return to the big idea of the series – that the universe can be known and we better ourselves in our efforts to understand it – in the best episode of Cosmos so far.

Casey Dreier

The Voyager mission may be the ultimate expression of our desire to explore, but why does that will exist in the first place? Why is it unique to humans?

Emily Lakdawalla

Have kids to buy gifts for? I review some space-themed toys for kids age 1 to 12 or so: the Snap Circuits Deluxe Rover; astronaut costume accessories; the latest incarnation of Astronaut Barbie; and Lift Off Rocket Play Set. I also have a few construction toys to recommend.

Emily Lakdawalla

It's time for my annual roundup of reviews of space-themed books for children! I have lots of fiction and nonfiction books to recommend, for toddlers to teens.

Casey Dreier

Episode 5 focuses on Mars, the planet that has stubbornly refused to conform to the wishes of humanity for hundreds of years, from Lowell to Sagan. Grab your cosmo and join our discussion of 'Blues for a Red Planet.'

Casey Dreier

Humans face the consequences of our own knowledge about the cosmos in this latest episode recap and analysis of Carl Sagan's classic series.

Casey Dreier

We continue our analysis of Cosmos as we jump back in time to see the birth of modern science with Johannes Kepler or, as Sagan calls it, the first fusion of

Emily Lakdawalla

This book is so great. I cannot imagine how many hours of happy building went into the development of the various LEGO ships and space bases included in this book, but I wish I could have participated.

Mat Kaplan

The Benford brothers provide inspiration and hard fact in their excellent new anthology about interstellar travel.

Emily Lakdawalla

Rock Star -- the memoir of television

Emily Lakdawalla

What have the recent discoveries of thousands of exoplanets told us about how we got here, and whether we are alone? In Destiny or Chance Revisited, Stuart Ross Taylor attempts to answer those two questions.

Emily Lakdawalla

The world's great telescopes capture stunning photographs of stars, nebulae, and other sky phenomena. In Europe to the Stars, authors Govert Schilling and Lars Lindberg Christensen share many such photos. But the real stars of this book are the great telescopes of the European Southern Observatory.

Emily Lakdawalla

The awesome LEGO Curiosity rover designed by Stephen Pakbaz is going to go into production!

Emily Lakdawalla

This very accessible textbook begins at the beginning, explaining how all the things in the solar system were made from star stuff.

Emily Lakdawalla

My final set of reviews of children's books for 2012: five recommended nonfiction books for a range of ages.