Chris Lintott’s Universe

Sometimes, all too rarely, there is a news story which needs no further explanation. How wonderful is this image? The rovers have been doing incredible things (and I’m looking forward to interviewing their creator, Steve Squyers, again next month) but to see one of them from orbit just illustrates how rapidly Mars exploration is advancing.

More Mars over the weekend…

UPDATE : I forgot to add these pictures and reconstructions which were sent in by Stuart Atkinson.

The fourth of the entries in the Sky at Night magazine’s ‘Hotshots’ competition is our second photo of the Great Orion nebula, M42, which couldn’t look much different from the last one. This one was taken through narrowband filters in order to avoid the worst of the light pollution, which seems to have brought out the extended emission nicely.