Thick dust and blinding starlight have long obscured our vision into the mysterious inner regions of our Milky Way galaxy. And yet, the clues have been piling up that something important, something strange is going on in there. Astronomers tracking stars in the center of the galaxy have found the best proof to date that black holes exist. Now, they are preparing to capture the first direct image of a supermassive black hole.

Pandora is the idyllic blue world featured in the movie Avatar. Its location is a real place: Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to our Sun and the most likely destination for our first journey beyond the solar system.