What happens during a lunar eclipse?

Meteor showers occur when Earth passes through the fine dust debris strewn around the orbit of a comet. This happens when Earth is in a similar position in its orbit every year, and meteor showers rep

Your dusty, distant destination awaits, with unique geology that reveals billions of years of cosmic collisions

A crack-of-dawn start is one way to avoid the crowds. But there’s another option that doesn’t need an alarm clock.

BEST TIME TO SEE: From 03:30 BST (02:30 UT) all month. Closest approach on 12 August Venus is the brightest planet that can be seen from Earth. At its peak brightness, when 22% illuminated, Venus appr

1 Our Moonwatch target (see page 52), the walled plain Flammarion, is well placed this evening and tomorrow evening. You can also catch it on the waning Moon on the morning of 16 August. 2 This evenin

Of the hundreds of thousands of asteroids in our solar system, it is all too feasible that one could strike Earth. If scientists discover this is likely to happen, what are our options for defending ourselves – and who will make the key decisions? Tomas Weber reports