So NEAR, and yet so far from UNDERSTANDING

Valles Marineris
Valles Marineris

On Valentine’s Day, 2000, the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft is is due, on its second attempt, to go into orbit around asteroid 433 Eros. It will be the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid. NEAR will examine the odd-shaped rock, about twice the size of Manhattan Island, for about a year. What do…


Alien Skies

Voyager Plaque
Voyager Plaque

“Homo sapiens sapiens is not always as sapiens as he sapiently should be.” Professor Gus Nossall. Two Voyager spacecraft are carrying a message from the human race to the remote future, somewhere in the distant stars. Our faint hope is that some other life form will find one of those spacecraft and decipher its cryptic…