Earth & Space

Imagery that comes to grips with black holes, places where the equations of the physicists seem to stretch unto breaking. Videos after the jump.

Seven years ago, Mars Exploration Rover Spirit landed on Mars. Mired in 2009 after traveling nearly five miles across the Martian landscape and silent since March, Spirit's parking spot may be its final resting place.

On the brink of 2011, peering out through circles within circles, reckoning changes to come.

Cassini's composite picture of the gas giant drives home what a vast, strange, and compelling world it is.

A new thesis puts the explanation for the sudden appearance of sophisticated late-prehistoric coastal settlements underwater�in the Persian Gulf, to be specific, which up to 7,500 years ago would have been a vast oasis in the midst of the arid ice ages.

As this image from the GOES-13 satellite shows, the snow that hit the Eastern Seaboard was delivered by a formidable storm. Picture after the jump.

Exotic lighter-than-air craft�including argon- and methane-filled balloons and hopping dirigibles�offer tantalizing prospects for future missions to Saturn's largest moon.

What's behind the starry flap? Follow the jump to see today's scene, the latest in a collection of space imagery compiled by Alan Taylor for the Boston Globe's photo blog, The Big Picture.

The history of NASA's wearable spacecraft will be visible in a traveling Smithsonian exhibition scheduled to make the rounds this Spring.

Astonishing caverns near the Ascraeus volcano on Mars aren't the holes left by Frank Herbert's sandworms, but they may evince past volcanic activity.