The Planetary Report • September/October 1993

Monitoring the Milky Way

On the Cover: Clouds of stars fill the night sky near the center of the Milky Way. Among the hundreds of billions of stars that make up our galaxy, there may be some that have nurtured life-forms similar in technological development to ourselves—that may be aiming radio beacons in our direction. This is the hypothesis behind Project META, The Planetary Society's search for the radio signals that could tell us that extraterrestrial beings exist.

Features

4 Project META: What Have We Found? Paul Horowitz presents The Planetary Society's project, hunting for life beyond Earth.

10 Back to the Moon, On to an Asteroid: The Clementine Mission: Stewart Nozette and Eugene Shoemaker highlight our return to the Moon after a lapse of over 20 years.

16 From Cycle to Cycle: Magellan's Mission Continues: Charlene Anderson gives an update on this mission exploring Venus.

Departments

3 Members' Dialogue Responses to Clay Kallam's letter in our previous issue.

18 News & Reviews Meteor storms; the Big Bang.

19 World Watch The U.S. Space Station program; International Mars Steering Group.

20 Q&A How was the distance from Earth to the Sun determined?

22 Readers' Service The Evening Star: Venus Observed.

23 Society Notes Space education, the Mars Snake project, and naming Mars rovers.

The Planetary Report • September/October 1993

View Table of Contents

Help advance space science and exploration! Become a member of The Planetary Society and you'll receive the full PDF and print versions of The Planetary Report.