Smartbean lists images from the Hubble Space Telescope like this one of the Bug Nebula (NGC 6302) as a reason kids will love astronomy. NASA photo Cultivating children’s interest in astronomy is a goal for professional scientists, planetarium directors, schoolteachers, and astronomy clubs alike. So it’s nice to see when parents are encouraged to get involved in astronomy with their kids. In a recently published article, SmartBean is doing just that...

Official Galilean Nights poster Another International Year of Astronomy 2009 Cornerstone Project kicks off tomorrow night around the globe. The goal of Galilean Nights , October 22-24, is to allow hundreds of thousands of people all around the world to experience their own “Galileo moment” when they look up at the sky through a telescope for the first time. Currently there are more than 1,000 public observing events in more than 70 countries to help...

A waxing gibbous Moon. Astronomy.com member "LATiger" photo I have a love-hate relationship with the Internet. It makes getting information easier than ever, but it also can make getting the CORRECT information more difficult than ever. Sometimes, it takes a lot of sifting through less-than-reputable sites to find goods ones you can trust. So it’s a bonus when someone else does it for you. The Astronomy Society of the Pacific has been working...

The November 2009 issue of Astronomy should be in your mailbox any day now (if it’s not already in your hands), and we’ve updated Astronomy.com with our newest web extras to give subscribers exclusive information complementary to the issue. Take a sneak peek inside the November 2009 Astronomy magazine . Or watch Editor David J. Eicher's video preview of the issue . If you subscribe to Astronomy , make sure you’re registered with Astronomy.com...

Last Friday, NASA and Disney Parks officially welcomed space ranger Buzz Lightyear back to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) with a ticker-tape parade at Disney’s Magic Kingdom in Orlando (and, no, I’m not joking). The 12-inch action figure spent more than 15 months aboard the ISS, returning to Earth September 11. In addition to that celebration, NASA and Disney Parks are collaborating again to launch new efforts to help young students...

NASA’s Desert RATS — or Research and Technology Studies — has concluded two weeks of technology development tests on two of the agency's prototype lunar rovers from the Black Point Lava Flow in Arizona. The studies allow NASA to analyze and refine technologies and procedures in extreme environments on Earth. The annual studies featured a simulated 14-day mission. Two crew members, an astronaut and a geologist, lived for more than 300 hours inside...

Now, I know the main science objectives of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) — currently in orbit around the Moon — are to help NASA identify safe landing sites for future explorers, locate potential resources, describe the Moon's radiation environment, and demonstrate new technologies. Still, I admit I was most excited about seeing the LRO's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) images of the Apollo landing sites. And I wasn’t disappointed...

Although the fall season doesn’t officially start for another few weeks, it is time to head back to school (for those who didn’t already start last week). College students probably have just spent an arm and a leg on books, room and board, and tuition. And some might now be thinking, “I could really use some scholarship help right now.” Well, for those studying aeronautics or related fields, NASA offers a great opportunity: the NASA Aeronautics Scholarship...

Now that the October issue of Astronomy is in the mail, we’ve updated Astronomy.com with our newest web extras to give subscribers exclusive complementary information on the issue. Take a sneak peek inside the October issue . Also, watch Editor Dave Eicher's video preview of the October 2009 issue . If you subscribe to Astronomy , make sure you’re registered with Astronomy.com so you can access these great extras. Here are this issue's highlights...

Normally, every few months I post a blog sharing the results of some of the more interesting polls we do on the Astronomy.com home page. But this time, I want to focus on only one poll result because, well, I thought maybe you all could provide some insight and feedback. Last week, the poll was a basic demographic question, one I’m surprised we’d never asked before (at least, we don’t have a record of it): “How long have you been active in astronomy...