Astronomy May 2018

Learn about the formation of the solar system, observe Mars up close, and seek the unknown in this issue of Astronomy.

•New insights into how the solar system formed: Recent observations reveal that chaos and mayhem ruled our planetary system’s first days.
•Observe Mars at its best: It’s been 15 years since the Red Planet was this close and this big.
•Seeking the unknown in cosmic data: In an era of large-scale surveys, citizen science projects, and new machine-learning techniques, unexpected discoveries should be expected.