... Galaxies.. ... An evocative nebula in the southern sky, the sprawling cosmic Tarantula is an energetic star forming region some 168,000 light-years distant in our neighboring galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud. ... Come December 2003 - January 2004, an armada of five new invaders from Earth should arrive on the shores of the Red Planet -- the Japanese ( ISAS) Nozomi orbiter, the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter carrying the Beagle 2 lander, and NASA's own two Mars Exploration Rovers. ...