Pythagorean Astronomy

A roundup of the month's news from around the Solar System - and beyond. You don't think of mars rovers having drawers, but that's exactly what has just been installed on the Rosalind Franklin Rover, part of ESA's ExoMars mission. This is no ordinary drawer, of course, but the "Analytical Laboratory Drawer", designed to test martian soil for the presence of biomarkers or microfossils, either of which would indicate the presence of present or past life. Closer to home, a mile-wide asteroid called 1999 KW4 has just whizzed past the Earth. It's at a relatively safe distance - 13 Earth-Moon distances, or 5 million km, but it gives us a chance to study it in more detail - including its small moon! You can also take part in the observations, at LCO's Asteroid Tracker (asteroidtracker.lco.global). The presence of a moon isn't that unusual, with many small objects having companions - and not just in the inner Solar System. Further afield, we've just had the first official publication of the results from New Horizons