Seventh-magnitude 4 Vesta is an easy catch from any location and with any equipment: binoculars or a telescope. Tonight, it’s just 5’ from a magnitude 7.5 field star, creating a temporary artificial double star to enjoy.  You’ll find Vesta in the northwestern corner of Libra, near that constellation’s border with Virgo. It now sits aboutContinue reading "The Sky Today on Saturday, July 19: Vesta forms a double star"

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At 7:15 a.m. EDT on July 14, the crew of Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) undocked from the International Space Station, wrapping up an 18-day stay that marked new milestones in commercial and international spaceflight.  The team — led by veteran NASA astronaut and current Axiom Space human spaceflight director Peggy Whitson — splashed down safelyContinue reading "Axiom Mission 4 crew returns to Earth after historic ISS stay"

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Fernando Oliveira de Menezes from São Paulo, Brazil Globular cluster M4 lies just west of Antares (Alpha [α] Scorpii). To a visual observer, a 6-inch scope reveals dozens of stars; this image comprising 2.6 hours resolves nearly the entire cluster, yielding a star field that feels like you could fall into it. Click to seeContinue reading "Glorious resolution"

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Many faint planetary nebulae went undiscovered for surprisingly long times after Charles Messier and the Herschels stopped cataloguing nebulous objects lying around parts of the sky. It wasn’t until 1980 that two Austrian astronomers, Alois Purgathofer and Ronald Weinberger, found a large, faint planetary nebulae as they searched plates of the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey. Continue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: PuWe 1   "

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You’ve set your telescope up and are showing people some of the wonders in the sky. Of course, they’re going to ask you questions. Here are some you might be asked. How many do you know the answers to? Question 1: Approximately how old is the universe? Question 2: Which planet in our solar system has theContinue reading "Michael’s Miscellany: 25 Questions About Astronomy"

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Born on July 18, 1921, John Glenn grew up in Ohio and joined the Marine Corps in 1943. He flew 59 combat missions in World War II and 63 in the Korean War before being selected by NASA for the Mercury program. In 1962, he spent five hours orbiting the Earth in the Friendship 7Continue reading "July 18, 1915: The birth of John Glenn"

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Titan’s shadow transits the cloud tops of Saturn this morning, beginning around 2:50 A.M. EDT. At that time, Saturn (in the constellation Pisces) should be above the horizon for most of the U.S., with the Last Quarter Moon a good distance away, straddling the border of Pisces and Aries.  Saturn, at magnitude 0.9, is theContinue reading "The Sky Today on Friday, July 18: Titan’s shadow transits"

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Sky This Week is brought to you in part by Celestron. Friday, July 18Mars remains close to Sigma (σ) Leonis, Leo the Lion’s back foot, in the evening sky for several days. Shining at magnitude 1.5, the Red Planet is just over 1° southwest of the 4th-magnitude star tonight.  An hour after sunset, Mars isContinue reading "The Sky This Week from July 18 to 25: Have you seen our interstellar visitor?"

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The sky is filled with interesting and unusual planetary nebulae, which give us a forward look at the end state of our own star and solar system. Some of the faintest and most unusual planetaries were discovered long after the NGC and IC catalogs, and so bear strange designations. Such is the case with aContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: Jones-Emberson 1  "

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In 2021, the United Nations General Assembly declared July 20 International Moon Day, a celebration of our nearest celestial neighbor on the anniversary of the day Apollo 11 landed on the Moon in 1969. The Starmus Festival, founded by astronomer Garik Israelian and astronomer and musician Brian May, is involved with many astronauts and hasContinue reading "Celebrate International Moon Day with Starmus"

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Astronomers are continuing to gather data on 3I/ATLAS, the third confirmed interstellar object (ISO) to pass through our solar system — and possibly the most intriguing yet. Since its discovery on July 1, 2025, new analyses have revealed clues about its origins, composition, age, and potential for future observation. Here’s what the latest research tellsContinue reading "What we know so far about 3I/ATLAS, the interstellar visitor"

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The Apollo-Soyuz mission, which occurred 50 years ago this month, was the culmination of a series of fitful attempts at possible international cooperation on human spaceflight. But before one astronaut and one cosmonaut met in an airlock in orbit over the Earth, there were wiretaps and hot dogs, language lessons and vodka toasts. And thoughContinue reading "50 years since the ‘Handshake in Space’: The legacy of Apollo-Soyuz"

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After years of planning, training, and international negotiation, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission culminated in 1975 when spacecraft from the U.S. and the Soviet Union docked in space. On July 17, the Apollo and Soyuz capsules locked together, utilizing an “androgynous” system of petal-shaped plates, and their commanders, Thomas Stafford and Aleksey Leonov, shook hands.Continue reading "July 17, 1975: The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project link-up"

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Gerardo N. Rigiroli from Buenos Aires, Argentina The nebula NGC 3503 in Carina is a stellar nursery that glows brightly at the center of this image, surrounded by ghostly tendrils of gas and dust. At bottom left is the open cluster NGC 3532. The image comprises just over 17 hours of SHORGB data taken withContinue reading "Starbirth in the Keel"

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Mercury stands stationary at 3 A.M. EDT amid the stars of Cancer. The solar system’s smallest planet will now start sliding westward, or retrograde, appearing to “fall” back toward the Sun as it moves through its tight, 88-day orbit.  You can catch Mercury in the evening sky, but only if you’re quick — it’s justContinue reading "The Sky Today on Thursday, July 17: Mercury stands still"

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On November 23, 2023, a groundbreaking astronomical event unfolded as scientists from the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration detected the most massive black hole merger ever observed. The finding was detailed in a July 13, 2025, press release shared by the University of Birmingham. This cosmic collision occurred when two colossal black holes, approximately 100 and 140 timesContinue reading "Astronomers detect the most massive black hole merger ever"

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A newborn planetary system is forming around HOPS-315, a protostar (one that recently formed) that sits some 1,300 light-years away in the constellation Orion the Hunter. This star isn’t in the star-forming region known as the Orion Nebula, however. It lies in a region of space known as the L1630 molecular cloud. Astronomers often seeContinue reading "Astronomers see a new solar system forming for the first time"

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Planck’s constant is one of the most important numbers in all of physics. It is, essentially, the ultimate guide to the quantum world. It tells us where quantum effects are important, the fundamental energy carried by light and matter, and more. And it all started as an ugly hack. The black body In the lateContinue reading "What is Planck’s constant?"

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The sky is full of interesting and unusual asterisms. If you look around hard enough, or are tired enough, you can convince yourself that you see patterns of stars that resemble practically anything.  But certain asterisms, simply patterns of stars that are composed of members not physically associated with each other, stand out more thanContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: The Broken Engagement Ring"

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In 1839, the president of Harvard University invited William Bond to move into a house on campus and, by virtue of bringing along his own astronomical equipment, become the university’s first astronomer in residence. With public interest spurred by the 1835 passage of Halley’s Comet and the Comet of 1843, Harvard soon had enough moneyContinue reading "July 16, 1850: Bond and Whipple photograph Vega"

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Chris Schur, taken from Payson, Arizona The interstellar object 3I/ATLAS — just the third to be discovered — is captured in this amateur shot (click and zoom in to see inset) next to the open cluster M23 (at right). The imager used a 10-inch f/3.9 scope to take 30 minutes of LRGB exposure.

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The now-waning Moon is passing through Pisces in the early-morning sky. Our satellite slides 3° north of Neptune at 6 A.M. EDT, then passes 4° north of Saturn at 7 A.M. EDT. It’s a lovely view for early risers, who can catch the scene in the few hours before dawn. Two hours before sunrise, theContinue reading "The Sky Today on Wednesday, July 16: The Moon hangs with Neptune and Saturn"

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Sotheby’s in New York will be auctioning the largest martian meteorite ever found on Earth on Wednesday as part of a natural history-themed sale. Known as NWA 16788, it was found in Niger in November 2023 by a meteorite hunter. The meteorite, which is red, brown, and gray in color, measures 15 by 11 byContinue reading "The biggest piece of Mars on Earth is up for auction"

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Ron Brecher from Guelph, Ontario, Canada The dwarf galaxy IC 2574 is also known as Coddington’s Nebula, having been discovered by American astronomer Edwin Foster Coddington in 1898, when the nature of galaxies was not yet known. In Hydrogen-alpha light, bright knotty clumps indicate prodigious amounts of star formation. This image comprises just over 17Continue reading "A knotty galaxy"

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Born July 15, 1943, Jocelyn Bell Burnell is a British astrophysicist best known for her discovery of pulsars. In 1967, when she was a graduate student in radio astronomy at the University of Cambridge, Bell Burnell noticed “scruff” in the data she was reviewing from the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory. Bell Burnell jokingly called thisContinue reading "July 15, 1943: Birth of Jocelyn Bell Burnell"

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The center of the Milky Way is on display during summer evenings, arcing slowly through the southern sky. The galactic center is located near the magnitude 4.5 star 3 Sagittarii, which sits just 4.7° northwest (to the upper right, late this evening if you’re facing south) of Gamma (γ) Sgr, the star at the tipContinue reading "The Sky Today on Tuesday, July 15: Great views of the galactic center"

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Massimo Tamajo from Syracuse, Sicily, Italy The effects of atmospheric refraction can distort the appearance of the Sun near the horizon — especially when atmospheric inversions are created above an ocean that is cooler than the air above it.

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In a universe governed by turbulence and chaos, perfection is rarely more than a mathematical ideal. Yet astronomers are puzzling over a newfound object that seems to defy that rule: a glowing, nearly flawless circular shell of gas and dust, likely the remnant of a long-dead star, that has remarkably preserved its shape in aContinue reading "Astronomers discover a perfectly spherical supernova remnant"

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Mission Highlight: Gilmour Eris Testflight 1 After weeks of delays, Australia is finally poised to join the orbital launch club. Gilmour Space Technologies is expected to debut its Eris rocket with a test launch from Queensland’s Bowen Orbital Spaceport no earlier than (NET) July 16. The three-stage rocket, powered by hybrid engines fueled by aContinue reading "Gilmour aims for orbit again as Starlink surges continue"

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In this episode, Astronomy magazine Editor Dave Eicher invites you to head out and observe M4, the wonderful globular cluster in the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion. You can use the Scorpion’s brightest star, 1st-magnitude Antares, as your guide. Although sharp-eyed observers may pick this up with their naked eyes, its swarms of stars look best through aContinue reading "This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher: Globular cluster M4"

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In a July 10 markup meeting, the Senate Appropriations Committee, responsible for crafting the specific spending bills that allocate federal funds across the government, pushed back against President Trump’s proposed FY2026 budget. The comments signaled bipartisan resistance in the Senate to steep cuts in federal science funding. The president’s proposed budget, released in May, aimedContinue reading "Senate appropriations committee pushes back on 2026 NASA budget cuts"

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Why will our Sun expel its outer layers as it dies? Daniel StanyerAugusta, Kansas First, let’s discriminate between expansion and expulsion. Expansion happens because the thermal pressure from the increased energy production in the Sun’s interior exceeds the gravitational force keeping the Sun’s matter close to its core. The Sun will expand until a newContinue reading "Why will our Sun expel its outer layers as it dies? "

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New Horizons launched in January 2006, and by July 14, 2015, it had reached its primary goal: Pluto. The first spacecraft to study Pluto up close, it conducted measurements of Pluto’s atmosphere, mapped the surface geology, observed Pluto’s moons. New Horizons also investigated the dwarf planet’s interior structure, adding support to the theory that PlutoContinue reading "July 14, 2015: New Horizon arrives at Pluto"

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Saturn stands stationary amid the stars of Pisces at 4 A.M. EDT. It is followed two hours later by asteroid 3 Juno, which reaches its stationary point in Libra at 6 A.M. EDT.  Only Saturn is visible in the morning sky, while Juno is up after sunset. Starting in the morning, look for magnitude 0.9Continue reading "The Sky Today on Monday, July 14: Saturn and Juno are stationary"

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On July 13, 1969, the Soviet Union launched Luna 15, an unmanned spacecraft seen as a rival to the American Apollo 11 mission, which launched just three days later. Luna 15’s goal was to land on the Moon, collect rock samples, and return to Earth before the Apollo astronauts. But the heightened moment of competitionContinue reading "July 13, 1969: Luna 15 launches"

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Venus passes 3° north of Aldebaran in Taurus at midnight EDT; the pair is visible in the early-morning sky, well positioned in the east for two hours before sunrise.  Venus is notably brighter — magnitude –4.1, far outshining magnitude 0.9 Aldebaran, the brightest star in the Taurus and cataloged as Alpha (α) Tauri. Together, theContinue reading "The Sky Today on Sunday, July 13: The Bull has two eyes"

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The Soviet Union launched Phobos 2 on July 12, 1988, the second of two uncrewed probes designed to study Mars, moons Phobos and Deimos, the Sun, and the interplanetary environment. Each probe was equipped with 25 instruments including high-energy detectors; X-ray and solar photometers; infrared, ultrasound, and gamma-ray spectrometers; and more. Phobos 1 was lostContinue reading "July 12, 1988: Phobos 2 launches"

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Already high in the east an hour after sunset is the constellation Lyra the Lyre, easy to locate thanks to its brightest star, magnitude 0 Vega. Tonight, we’re looking southeast of this star at M56, an 8th-magnitude globular cluster in near the border of Lyra and Cygnus. In fact, one of the easiest ways toContinue reading "The Sky Today on Saturday, July 12: M56 in Lyra"

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Xiaofeng Qu, taken from Lijiang, Yunnan, China The Geminid meteor shower appears to rain down upon the Gaomeigu Astronomical Observatory (altitude: 10,500 feet [3,200 meters]) in this carefully composed 10-panel panorama. Also visible are numerous Hα features glowing across the sky, like the Orion Loop just above the observatory dome. The imager used 4 NikonContinue reading "High-altitude shower"

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I thought I’d write a bit about several eye-related topics. First up is resolution, which is the ability to see details in objects. We have decreased resolution at night, and little color vision as well, for multiple reasons: reduced numbers of retinal cells firing, the color shift in sensitivity vs. the focus ability of theContinue reading "Michael’s Miscellany: The Eyes Have It"

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There is a battle brewing over ownership of a retired NASA space shuttle. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump at the White House last week, sets aside $85 million to relocate the space shuttle Discovery from its current home at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in northernContinue reading "Smithsonian pushing back on plans to relocate space shuttle"

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On July 11, 1801, French astronomer Jean-Louis Pons made his first comet discovery, c/1801 N1. When he’d began his career in 1789 as a doorkeeper (essentially, a concierge) at Marseille Observatory, the directors had recognized his talents and taught him more about astronomy. That background, combined with his exceptional observational skills and the ability toContinue reading "July 11, 1801: Jean-Louis Pons finds his first comet"

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There’s a demon in the early-morning sky, amid the stars of Perseus the Hero. Second-magnitude Algol (Beta Persei) is also famously known as the Demon Star, and you can spot it two hours before sunrise, standing 30° high in the east, to the upper left of the Pleiades.  Algol is dubbed a demon because everyContinue reading "The Sky Today on Friday, July 11: The demon in the morning sky"

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Sky This Week is brought to you in part by Celestron. Friday, July 11The Moon passes just 0.02° north of the dim, distant dwarf planet Pluto at 7 P.M. EDT. However, the bright light from our satellite will make Pluto — already a challenging object requiring the largest amateur instruments — even more difficult toContinue reading "The Sky This Week from July 11 to 18: The Moon hangs with Saturn and Neptune"

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President Donald Trump announced Wednesday evening that U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy would serve as an “interim administrator” of NASA. “He will be a fantastic leader of the ever more important Space Agency, even if only for a short period of time,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform.Continue reading "Trump taps Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy as ‘interim’ NASA head"

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Chuck Ayoub from Redford, MI Globular cluster M53 in Coma Berenices (at right) is accompanied by fainter NGC 5053 (at left). Astronomers have reported evidence for a tidal tail, suggesting the pair have interacted in the past. The imager took 2.5 hours of exposure with a Celestron RASA 8-inch f/2 scope and a one-shot colorContinue reading "An ancient pair"

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Quasars were a mystery when first discovered in the early 1960s. They are extremely distant, starlike objects that emit enormous amounts of energy. Years later, astronomers understood that quasars are the extremely energetic centers of young galaxies, powered by supermassive black holes. The fact that they are mostly young (the black holes generally quiet downContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: NGC 3079 and Quasar 0957+561   "

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Few authors have had as big an impact on space journalism as Jeffrey Kluger. His 1994 book Lost Moon, co-authored with Astronaut James Lovell, was the basis for the 1995 film Apollo 13, which starred Tom Hanks and was directed by Ron Howard. Other books by Kluger have focused on the flight of Apollo 8 and NASA’s unmannedContinue reading "Behind the scenes of NASA’s Project Gemini: Astronomy chats with Jeffrey Kluger"

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Inventor Nikola Tesla was born July 10, 1856, in what is now Croatia (then part of the Austrian Empire). In 1899, Tesla recorded cosmic radio waves in his Colorado Springs, Colorado, laboratory. Though he believed the waves were extraterrestrial signals from another planet, today we know that they are part of the spectrum of anContinue reading "July 10, 1856: The birth of Nicola Tesla"

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Full Moon occurs at 4:37 P.M. EDT this afternoon and will rise in the southeast around the time the Sun is setting in the northwest. The July Full Moon is also called the Buck Moon, and this month our satellite also rises at its farthest point south in 18.6 years: some 7° more southerly thanContinue reading "The Sky Today on Thursday, July 10: The Full Buck Moon swings low"

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When President Donald Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” into law on July 4, an amendment to the legislation introduced by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) provided NASA with additional funding beyond the standard fiscal year 2025 budget. This extra money — around $9.9 billion — is intended to support key programs like Artemis, theContinue reading "Congress adds Artemis funding to Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” backing NASA’s Moon return plans"

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On July 9, 1979, NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft came within 404,003 miles (650,180 kilometers) of Jupiter. Launched in August 1977, the Voyager probes were originally planned to study Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager 1 arrived at Jupiter in March 1979, and Voyager 2 followed a few months later. Equipped with narrow- and wide-angle cameras, an interferometer,Continue reading "July 9, 1979: Voyager 2’s Jupiter visit"

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Adriano Anfuso/Vikas Chander The elliptical galaxy NGC 474 (lower right) contains multiple shell-like structures and tidal tails as a result of past interactions with other galaxies. The galaxy is currently interacting with a neighboring spiral galaxy, NGC 470 (just to its left). The lenticular galaxy NGC 467 (at left) is a background galaxy, more thanContinue reading "Shells of its former self"

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Venus hangs below the Pleiades in the early-morning sky today. The bright planet is quickly closing in on Taurus’ brightest star, Aldebaran, which it will pass closely next week. Step outside 90 minutes before sunrise to spot blazing Venus (magnitude –4.1) about 8.4° below the Pleiades open cluster (M45) in the east. The planet isContinue reading "The Sky Today on Wednesday, July 9: Venus and the Pleiades"

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In July 1992, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 made its closest approach to Jupiter, skimming 25,000 miles (40,000 km) above Jupiter’s cloud tops. That put Shoemaker-Levy 9 within the gas giant’s Roche limit; the planet’s tidal forces broke the comet into more than 20 pieces, giving it a “string of pearls” appearance and setting the stage forContinue reading "July 8, 1992: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaks up"

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Steve Leonard from Markham, Ontario, Canada The Spider Nebula (Sharpless 2–234, at right) weaves a tangled web next to the Fly, also known as NGC 1931 (at left). The imager used a dynamic Foraax palette on 20¼ hours of SHORGB data to bring out detail across the wide dynamic range of the scene, yielding detailContinue reading "Cosmic predation"

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Climbing to 60° high in the east two hours before sunrise, the constellation Andromeda lies just to the upper right of the easy-to-spot W-shaped constellation Cassiopeia. This morning, let’s enjoy a view of the star cluster NGC 7686 in northwestern Andromeda, about 3° northwest of 4th-magnitude Lambda (λ) Andromedae.  This bright group of stars shinesContinue reading "The Sky Today on Tuesday, July 8: Catch NGC 7686 in Andromeda"

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NGC 2685, often called the Helix Galaxy, is quite an unusual object. It is a lenticular (lens-shaped) galaxy that is also a polar ring galaxy, showing a ring of material at 90° orientation to its main axis, resulting from an interaction with a nearby galaxy. It is also a Seyfert Galaxy, its active nucleus powered byContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: The Helix Galaxy   "

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Gilmour Space Technologies has officially announced that the earliest available launch window for its Eris rocket is no earlier than (NET) July 16. The launch was postponed on July 2 due to adverse weather conditions. The company confirmed the updated launch window on July 3, citing Australia’s regulatory requirement for a two-week notice to theContinue reading "Gilmour delays debut launch, Starlink flies into the week solo"

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Greg Meyer from Phoenix, Arizona Three objects fill this vista on the border of Cepheus and Cygnus: the Seahorse Nebula (Barnard 150) at left and the Fireworks Galaxy (NGC 6956) and open cluster NGC 6939 at right. The imager captured over 17 hours of exposure in LRGB filters with a 3.2-inch scope.

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In this episode, Astronomy magazine Editor Dave Eicher invites you to head out during the evening of July 7 and observe the pretty bright Moon passing Antares, also known as Alpha Scorpii. Look sharp, because the Moon’s light may hinder your view of the star, especially if your location has high clouds or smoke overhead. Good luck!

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How did a Cepheid variable star help Edwin Hubble prove the Andromeda Nebula was a galaxy?  Roger BradySan Quentin, California Cepheids are rare variable stars with periods ranging from about 1 to 120 days. Their light curve — a chart showing brightness over time — is characterized by rapid brightening followed by slow dimming inContinue reading "How did Edwin Hubble prove Andromeda was a galaxy?"

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Astronomers have spotted a rare cosmic duo: a neutron star that rotates nearly a hundred times every second locked in an ultra-tight orbit with a semi-shredded star. The scientists who found the pair say one of these stars swallowed the other whole and then spat it back out. It’s the first discovery of a millisecondContinue reading "‘Strange binary’: Astronomers discover a pulsar and a helium star orbiting each other"

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Vikas Chander from New Delhi, India The 10.4-meter Gran Telescopio Canarias lies beneath the stars and Venus atop Roque de los Muchachos on La Palma in the Canary Islands. The imager used a Sony mirrorless camera and 85mm lens at f/4 to take two hundred 30-second exposures at ISO 100. Above the clouds

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Perhaps 100 billion galaxies exist in the universe at this time, although the cosmos could be infinite and the number even larger. Of the huge number of galaxies, several thousand are bright enough to be viewed nicely with a small or medium-sized backyard telescope. And of course the orientations of galaxies in space are allContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: Edge-on galaxy NGC 5907"

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Mission Highlights: Axiom 4 Delayed The launch of Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) has been postponed for a second time. This delay stems from a pressure leak in the Russian Zvezda service module aboard the International Space Station (ISS), following previous weather-related issues and a liquid oxygen leak in the Falcon 9 rocket. As of JuneContinue reading "Axiom 4 launch delayed again as Starlink and Blue Origin missions prepare for liftoff"

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The White House’s proposed 2026 NASA budget calls for a dramatic 24 percent cut to funding, reducing NASA’s budget from $24.8 billion to $18.8 billion. If enacted, this would mark the agency’s smallest budget since 1961, when adjusted for inflation. The most severe reductions target NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD), which faces a 47 percentContinue reading "This graphic shows what’s at stake in the proposed 2026 NASA budget"

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When the Sun becomes a red giant, will the outer planets and moons become more temperate and conducive to Earth-like life? Terrence A. MurrayCincinnati, Ohio When the Sun runs out of hydrogen fuel and expands into a red giant, it will eventually encompass the innermost planets of the solar system, out to about Earth’s orbit.Continue reading "When the Sun becomes a red giant, will the outer planets and moons become more temperate?"

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In this episode, Astronomy magazine Editor Dave Eicher invites you to head out on the evening of June 16 to observe a close passage of the star Regulus by Mars. Regulus is the brightest star in the constellation Leo the Lion and sits at the bottom of that figure’s “backward question mark,” which is the Lion’s head,Continue reading "This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher: Mars passes the star Regulus"

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On June 16, 1963, 26-year-old Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova made history by becoming the first woman to travel into space. A former factory seamstress, Tereshkova was an accomplished amateur parachutist with over 100 jumps — a vital skill, since Vostok cosmonauts ejected before landing. Selected from over 400 applicants in 1962, she underwent months ofContinue reading "June 16, 1963: Valentina Tereshkova is the first woman in space"

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Mars will pass 0.8° north of Regulus at midnight EDT, and both are visible for several hours after sunset for evening observers to enjoy.  In the post-sunset sky, look west to find the two standing close together, with Mars just to the upper right of Regulus. Both star and planet are the same magnitude (1.4)Continue reading "The Sky Today on Monday, June 16: Mars and Regulus shine together"

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On June 15, 763 BCE, a near-total solar eclipse occurred over northern Assyria and was recorded by observers in Nineveh, the capital city. This event is preserved in the Eponym Canon, a list of historical events made by the Assyrians on clay tablets, following a specialized calendar system. The text notes: “Insurrection in the CityContinue reading "June 15, 763 BCE: Assyrians record a solar eclipse"

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The teams operating the Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) — NASA’s two most in-demand observatories and among its most scientifically productive missions — are preparing to reduce operations due to funding shortfalls, officials said last week at the summer meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Anchorage, Alaska. The comments came atContinue reading "James Webb, Hubble space telescopes face reduction in operations over funding shortfalls"

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Two hours after sunset, the sky is dark and the constellation Canes Venatici is high in the west, nestled beneath the curve of Ursa Major’s long tail, which also creates the handle of the Big Dipper asterism.  Located in northern Canes Venatici is M51, famously known as the Whirlpool Galaxy. It’s easy to find justContinue reading "The Sky Today on Sunday, June 15: View the Whirlpool and its companion"

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On June 14, 1949, a rhesus monkey named Albert II was launched into space aboard a V-2 rocket from White Sands, New Mexico. Prior to Albert II, animals including fruit flies, mice, and another monkey (Albert I) had been launched in rocket and balloon flights as part of American space biology research, but Albert II’sContinue reading "June 14, 1949: The first mammal in space"

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The Moon doesn’t rise until late tonight, leaving a dark window after sunset to explore the sky. Back in Leo in the west this evening, you might try your luck with Comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann, also known as Schwassmann-Wachmann 1. Now around 13th magnitude, the comet is sliding through southwestern Leo. Today, Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 is roughly 2°Continue reading "The Sky Today on Saturday, June 14: Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 sits at Leo’s feet"

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The sky is filled with great planetary nebulae for backyard observers. Their small size and relatively high surface brightnesses make them easy to observe in most telescopes — and decent targets on less than perfect nights. The constellation Cygnus is filled with bright planetaries, lying as it does smack dab on the center of theContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: NGC 7008"

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At one point, Sally Ride was arguably the most famous woman in the world. She flew two missions for NASA, including the one that made her the first American woman in space. She gave hundreds of interviews, and has appeared in countless books, on commemorative stamps, even on Sesame Street. She has a Barbie dollContinue reading "New documentary ‘Sally’ tells the full life story of America’s first female astronaut"

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Greg Meyer from Phoenix, Arizona Star trails encircle the landscape of northern Arizona in this 360° image that uses a stereographic projection. In the “foreground” of the scene lies the photographer’s Starpoint Australis portable tent observatory. The photographer captured the star trails with an Insta360 X4 camera, stacking around five hundred 30-second images taken atContinue reading "A world in motion"

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This is my open letter to all aurora chasers. After returning home from a successful trip to the 2024 Okie-Tex Star Party in early October, I received alerts from SpaceWeather.com indicating increased activity on the Sun. Predictions called for a severe geomagnetic storm, with a chance of auroral activity as far south as Alabama. IContinue reading "How I learned to love the Northern Lights"

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Every 11 years, activity on the Sun peaks. More sunspots, prominences, flares, and other phenomena are seen on our star’s face, plus, there’s an uptick in visible aurorae here on Earth. This time period is called the solar cycle, and we’re in the middle of the peak of the current one, solar cycle 25. TheseContinue reading "Michael’s Miscellany: Take a Look at the Sun"

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Pioneer 10 holds the titles for many “firsts”: It was NASA’s first mission to the outer planets, the first spacecraft to fly beyond Mars, the first to traverse the asteroid belt, and the first to fly past Jupiter. It was also the first spacecraft placed on a trajectory to escape the solar system into interstellarContinue reading "June 13, 1983: Pioneer 10 leaves solar system"

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Mercury now shines at magnitude –0.8 in the evening sky, lingering above the horizon some 80 minutes after the Sun disappears. Tonight, the solar system’s smallest planet stands just 20′ from the 3rd-magnitude star Mebsuta (Epsilon [ε] Geminorum), near the middle of the constellation Gemini.  You can catch the pairing with binoculars or a smallContinue reading "The Sky Today on Friday, June 13: Mercury meets Mebsuta"

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Sky This Week is brought to you in part by Celestron. Friday, June 13Mercury is making its way through Gemini, passing close to the star Mebsuta (Epsilon [ε] Geminorum) this evening. Visible for more than an hour after sunset, the magnitude –0.8 planet shines brightly in the west. Through binoculars or a telescope, you’ll beContinue reading "The Sky This Week from June 13 to 20: The Red Planet visits Regulus"

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Sometimes even scientists get lucky. Yale University astronomer Imad Pasha was scanning some ground-based images when he stumbled across a galaxy boasting several rings. Because the object’s name, LEDA 1313424, doesn’t roll off the tongue, his team nicknamed it the Bullseye. This Hubble image reveals why it’s an apt moniker: The galaxy boasts nine rings,Continue reading "Hubble spots a cosmic bullseye"

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Francisco Javier Pérez Olvera, taken from Mixquiahuala, Hidalgo, Mexico This wide-field view captures a broad swath of the star-forming Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, spanning the Flame Nebula (NGC 2024) to the Orion Nebula (M42). The imager used a 54mm f/4.5 astrograph and dual-band Hα/OIII filter with a one-shot color camera to take 16 hours 40Continue reading "From the Flame to Orion"

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On June 12, 2021, Nova Herculis 2021 (V1674 Herculis) erupted, and was discovered by amateur astronomer Seiji Ueda of Japan. The white dwarf quickly became visible to the naked eye, surging to 10,000 times brighter than it originally had been. Its speed was unprecedented: V1674 Herculis faded from that peak brightness in just over oneContinue reading "June 12, 2021: Seiji Ueda discovers Nova Herculis 2021"

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Saturn’s two-faced moon Iapetus reaches its greatest western elongation today. At western elongation, the moon’s lighter hemisphere is turned toward Earth, making it brightest and easiest to view through a telescope.  First, locate Saturn above the eastern horizon around 4 A.M. local daylight time, roughly 90 minutes before sunrise. At this time, the planet shouldContinue reading "The Sky Today on Thursday, June 12: Iapetus at its best"

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Andrei Pleskatsevich, taken from Minsk, Belarus The reflection nebula IC 63 lies near the star Navi (Gamma [γ] Cassiopeiae). Through a telescope, the object often appears to be concealed by the star’s glare, inspiring its common nickname, the Ghost of Cassiopeia. This imager took 5 hours of exposure with a 3-inch scope.

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Launched in February 2020, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Solar Orbiter probe has been looping around the Sun with a special purpose in mind: Studying the poles of our star.  The planets orbit the Sun in a single plane, called the ecliptic. This means we’re roughly even with the Sun’s equator and don’t see itsContinue reading "ESA’s Solar Orbiter reveals the Sun’s poles for the first time"

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Forty Ways to Know a Star: Using Stars to Understand Astronomy Princeton Architectural PressNew York, NY In Forty Ways to Know a Star: Using Stars to Understand Astronomy, Jillian Scudder explores stars’ greatest mysteries through 40 short essays accompanied by photos and illustrations. An astrophysicist, science blogger, and Oberlin College associate professor, Scudder details theContinue reading "New astronomy products to kick off your summer observing"

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Born in 1888, artist and illustrator Chesley Bonestell became famous for his realistic paintings of space. His work spanned decades and many formats and publications; perhaps most influential was his collaboration with Wernher von Brain on the 1952–54 Collier’s series, “Man Will Conquer Space Soon!” By making the stuff of science fiction seem achievable, his artwork helpedContinue reading "June 11, 1986: Chesley Bonestell dies"

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Full Moon occurs this morning at 3:44 A.M. EDT. Early risers can catch the Moon setting in the southwest shortly before sunrise, while anyone out in the evening will see the Full Moon rising again in the southeast not long after the Sun has set. That’s because the Full Moon is always located opposite theContinue reading "The Sky Today on Wednesday, June 11: The June Strawberry Moon"

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When galaxies run into each other, they often appear to merge gracefully, their cores pirouetting around one another, drawn by their mutual gravitational attraction as their spiral arms extend outward in repose and their disks dissolve into an eternal embrace. But not in galaxy cluster PLCKG 287.0+32.9. Like a high-speed multi-car pileup in a HollywoodContinue reading "Galaxy cluster pileup sets record for the size of its glow"

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Mission Highlight: Axiom 4 — A historic multinational endeavor The Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4), launching on June 11 at 8:00 a.m. EDT from Kennedy Space Center, will carry crew members from India, Poland, and Hungary—representing each nation’s first mission to the International Space Station. The historic flight will be commanded by NASA veteran Peggy WhitsonContinue reading "Axiom 4 makes history while SpaceX Starlink launches dominate the week"

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Here’s an oddball open star cluster I bet you’ve never seen — it’s catalogued as Pismis-Moreno 1. Lying at a high declination in the northern constellation Cepheus, it was discovered by Armenian-Mexican astronomer Paris Pismis and Mexican astronomer Marco Moreno-Corral.  Little data has been collected on this small group, which measures 9’ across and isContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: Pismis-Moreno 1"

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Ah, spring. Finally, it’s warm enough for even thin-blooded observers (like me) to break out their binoculars and telescopes. If you’re new to astronomy, however, you’ll want to become familiar with the constellations and bright stars that populate this season’s night sky before looking through the eyepiece. Then, when you read that a sky treatContinue reading "Michael’s Miscellany: The Spring Sky"

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Humanity’s need to track the Moon’s changing phases and motions is ancient. Mammoth hunters used the Moon as a timekeeper, carving crescent-shaped notches into bone and tusk. Sumerian astronomers recorded the Moon’s motion on clay tablets more than 3,000 years ago.  But as reliable and trustworthy as the Moon may seem, its dance around EarthContinue reading "How tracking the Moon helped astronomers unlock our understanding of celestial motion"

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Eugene Parker, pioneer of theoretical solar and plasma astrophysics, was born June 10, 1927. Parker revolutionized the field of heliophysics, notably by first proposing the existence of the solar wind — a stream of charged particles ejected from the Sun — in 1958. His theory was confirmed by Mariner II in 1962. Among many otherContinue reading "June 10, 1927: The birth of Eugene Parker"

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Marty Weintraub from Duluth, Minnesota An auroral display shimmers on the night of May 28/9 over Lake Saganaga in Minnesota, near the Canadian border. The photographer notes that wildfire smoke caused the aurora to take on a “fuzzy, diffuse” appearance — even though the image itself is sharp with pinpoint stars. A Sony mirrorless camera andContinue reading "Smokey aurorae"

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The Moon passes 0.3° south of Antares at 7 A.M. EDT. You can catch them early this morning, when they are highest in the south just after midnight on the 9th. The Moon’s bright light dominates the southern sky as our satellite quickly waxes toward the Full phase, which it will reach in just overContinue reading "The Sky Today on Tuesday, June 10: The Moon meets Antares"

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I spent part of last week in one of my favorite places, Flagstaff, Arizona, at Lowell Observatory. This storied institution is well known, and as I have written about previously, holds a unique place in the history of American science. Founded in 1894 by the Boston explorer and scientist Percival Lowell, the institution presents aContinue reading "Lowell Observatory faces big challenges"

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Near the Moon’s western limb lies Oceanus Procellarum, the Ocean of Storms — a vast swath of terrain spanning 1,600 miles (2,500 kilometers) north to south, and covering 10.5 percent of the lunar surface. Its hinterland is peppered with a teeming sea of craters. One of them, at its southeastern extremity, honors Britain’s first AstronomerContinue reading "350 years of astronomers royal: Astronomical advisors to the British monarchs"

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The White House’s proposed 2026 budget includes sweeping cuts to NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD), slashing its funding by approximately 47 percent, as reported by the American Astronomical Society (AAS). The NASA science budget reductions would significantly impact programs across astrophysics, heliophysics, Earth science, and planetary science, raising concerns throughout the scientific community. NASA willContinue reading "NASA to discuss proposed science budget cuts Thursday"

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Are either of the Voyager spacecraft capable of taking a picture of our solar system from their current interstellar locations? Jake CunninghamEugene, Oregon No, but let’s talk about how the spacecraft that once dazzled scientists and the public alike with images of our solar system came to this state. To preserve power and memory, missionContinue reading "Can either Voyager image our solar system from their current location?"

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Mark Johnston from Scottsdale, Arizona Prominences play on the limb of the Sun in this image taken June 7.

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In this episode, Astronomy magazine Editor Dave Eicher invites you to head out later in the evening to observe what most observers think is the sky’s most colorful area. Named for the nearby star Rho Ophiuchi, this region in the constellations Ophiuchus and Scorpius boasts emission, reflection, and dark nebulae, star clusters, and a red 1st-magnitude star,Continue reading "This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher: The Rho Ophiuchi Region"

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In early 1987, a team led by MIT’s Jacqueline Hewitt was imaging radio-emitting objects with the Very Large Array radio telescope as part of a gravitational lens survey. The unusual appearance of object MG1131+0456 – an oval with elongated bright spots at the ends – led to further investigation, and the researchers eventually concluded itContinue reading "June 9, 1988: First image of an Einstein ring"

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The constellation Hercules is high in the east after dark this evening. Rich with deep-sky objects, we’re passing by the Strongman’s most famous (M13) for its second-brightest globular cluster: M92.  But don’t feel like you’re settling for second best: This cluster is only a little fainter and smaller than M13, so it’s a stunning sightContinue reading "The Sky Today on Monday, June 9: Hercules’ other globular"

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Giovanni Cassini was born in Perinaldo, in what is now Italy, on June 8, 1625. Early work on Jupiter and Mars’ rotational periods and the positions of Jupiter’s satellites led to an invitation to Paris and the Academie des Sciences by King Louis XIV; he became director of the Observatorie de Paris in 1671, andContinue reading "June 8, 1625: The birth of Giovanni Cassini"

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Today, Mercury passes 2° north of Jupiter at 4 P.M. EDT. You can catch them together in the evening twilight, sinking in the west after sunset. But be quick: They are just a few degrees above the horizon half an hour after sunset. If you can get to a location with a clear western horizon,Continue reading "The Sky Today on Sunday, June 8: A conjunction of Mercury and Jupiter"

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NASA launched the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer satellite, or EUVE, on June 7, 1992, to conduct an all-sky survey at wavelengths inaccessible from the ground. The first satellite designed to operate in the short-wave ultraviolet range, its “objectives included discovering and studying UV sources radiating in this spectral region, and analyzing effects of the interstellar mediumContinue reading "June 7, 1992: The Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer launches"

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There’s a short dark window of about an hour after the Moon sets and before twilight begins to brighten the sky this morning. Use it to track down one of the most famous planetary nebulae in the sky: M27, the Dumbbell Nebula. Shining at magnitude 7.4 and stretching some 8’ by 6’, this was theContinue reading "The Sky Today on Saturday, June 7: The Dumbbell Nebula"

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“Extraterrestrial Cause for the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction,” by physicist Luis Alvarez, geologist Walter Alvarez, Frank Asaro, and Helen Michel, was published in Science June 6, 1980. In it, the authors propose that an asteroid crashing to Earth was responsible for the death of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. (The timeline was later amended to 66Continue reading "June 6, 1980: The asteroid impact theory"

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When you become a young observer of the skies, happy to be out in a dark field at night with a 6-inch or 8-inch scope, you never dream of the kind of night of observing I experienced on Thursday, June 5. I am in Flagstaff, Arizona, during part of this week, spending some time atContinue reading "Observing with a 4-meter telescope"

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Shift4 Payments founder and private astronaut Jared Isaacman believes “some people” within the White House “that had some axes to grind” are behind the surprising withdrawal of his nomination to lead NASA. In April, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation voted 19-9 to send Isaacman’s nomination to the full chamber. His confirmation voteContinue reading "Isaacman blames withdrawal of NASA Chief nomination on retribution"

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One of the most important factors to amateur astronomers is seeing, which is defined as the steadiness of the atmosphere at your observing site. You can tell how good (or bad) the seeing is by viewing a reasonably bright (2nd magnitude) star near the zenith. If it’s twinkling wildly, the seeing is bad. But if theContinue reading "Michael’s Miscellany: Tube Currents"

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Philippe Moussette, taken from Cap-Rouge, Quebec, Canada Smoke from wildfires burning across northern Canada gives the Sun an otherworldly glow in this 1/2000-second exposure taken with a Canon DSLR and 300mm lens with 2x teleconverter at f/10 and ISO 100.

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The Moon passes 0.5° south of Spica at 11 A.M. EDT. The pair hangs in the evening sky, located in the south an hour after sunset.  By this evening, the Moon has moved some 6.3° southeast of Spica, the star that anchors Virgo the Maiden as its alpha luminary. Spica is magnitude 1 and sitsContinue reading "The Sky Today on Friday, June 6: The Moon and Spica"

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Sky This Week is brought to you in part by Celestron. Friday, June 6The Moon passes 0.5° south of the magnitude 1.0 star Spica at 11 A.M. EDT. The pair hangs in the evening sky, located in the south two hours after sunset. They are now some 6.3° apart, with the waxing Moon to Spica’sContinue reading "The Sky This Week from June 6 to 13: Jupiter and Mercury meet"

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NGC 6946 is a bright galaxy sometimes called the Fireworks Galaxy due to its high rate of supernovae. It lies in a very rich star field right on the border of Cepheus and Cygnus.  This object is an intermediate spiral, meaning it structurally leans a little toward being a barred spiral. It was discovered byContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: NGC 6946"

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There have been times through the years when I’ve gone observing and have been unprepared. Whether it was an action I should have taken, an item that I forgot, or some bit of observing wisdom that would have made my session better. Hopefully, the following list will better prepare you for when you next headContinue reading "Michael’s Miscellany: Observing tips"

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On June 5, 1819, British mathematician and astronomer John C. Adams was born in in Cornwall. The first to predict the existence of Neptune, he wrote in his journal on July 3, 1841: “Formed a design in the beginning of this week of investigating, as soon as possible after taking my degree, the irregularities inContinue reading "June 5, 1819: The birth of John C. Adams"

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Bob Fera/Steeve Body/Steve Mandel Emission nebulae NGC 3576, 3603, 3572, and 3503 all feature in this wide-field vista of nebulae in Carina. The imagers captured Hα/OIII/RGB exposures of 380, 380, 100, 100, and 100 minutes respectively with a 4.2-inch scope.

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Now rising in the east after sunset is the famous Summer Triangle, so called because it sits high overhead on summer nights. As we head for the Northern Hemisphere summer solstice later this month, the three stars that make up this asterism will rise earlier and earlier each night.  Tonight around 11 P.M. local daylightContinue reading "The Sky Today on Thursday, June 5: Summer Triangle rising"

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Emmanuel Delgadillo from Jalisco, Mexico The Tadpoles, lying in the emission nebula IC 410, are stellar nurseries that will birth infant stars. Their “tails” of gas and dust are blown outward by winds and radiation from the open star cluster NGC 1893, which lies within the nebula. The imager used a 10-inch f/5 scope to takeContinue reading "A pond of stars"

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It’s difficult for amateur astronomers to fully share the wonders of the night sky with a visually impaired child. Well, that task has gotten a bit easier thanks to All About Orion, the new book by Dean Regas. This large (8½” by 11″) book contains 24 pages full of information about most people’s favorite constellation. It’s publishedContinue reading "Michael’s Miscellany: All About Orion"

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One of the earliest recorded eclipses is found in in the Shijing, a collection of ancient poetry whose compilation is also credited to Confucius. The eclipse in question occurred during the Zhou dynasty. Though the exact date is uncertain, some astronomers have pointed to the total eclipse of June 4, 781 B.C.E. (though this would have onlyContinue reading "June 4, 781 B.C.E: A great eclipse in China"

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Asteroid 2 Pallas is visible in the late evening and overnight into the early morning. Around local midnight, you’ll find this main-belt world some 16° high in the eastern sky, a few degrees east of the four-star lozenge in Delphinus also called Job’s Coffin.  This small, diamond-shaped asterism is made from four 4th-magnitude stars: Alpha,Continue reading "The Sky Today on Wednesday, June 4: Pallas swims with the Dolphin"

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One of the largest emission nebulae in the far northern sky can be found in IC 1396, a bright glow in Cepheus that contains several complex objects. Among them are the red supergiant star Mu Cephei; the double stars Struve 2816 and Struve 2819; the dark nebula van den Bergh 142, known as the ElephantContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: Emission nebula IC 1396"

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Emmanuel Joly from Le Cannet-des-Maures, France Narrowband Hα, SII, and OIII filters were used to collect 31.6 hours of data with an 8-inch scope for this portrait of the Wizard Nebula, which surrounds the open cluster NGC 7380 in Cepheus. The star field comprises RGB exposure times of 45 minutes each.

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How did we get here? Few topics in astronomy intrigue us more than this simple five-word query. Yet the simplicity hides multiple layers of complexity. How did the universe come into existence? How did stars form out of an initial mix of mostly hydrogen and helium gas? How did planets grow in the dusty disksContinue reading "Live long and prosper: JWST images NGC 346"

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The brainchild of George Ellery Hale, the 200-inch Hale Telescope was dedicated June 3, 1948, at Palomar Observatory in California. In promoting and fundraising for the project, Hale had a firm science agenda for the scope, but also wrote more fancifully of “the lure of the uncharted seas of space”; though he died in 1938,Continue reading "June 3, 1948: Hale Telescope dedicated"

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Already high in the sky at sunset, the Moon is some 45° high in the southwest an hour after the Sun disappears. Fix your telescope on the center of the Moon, near the terminator dividing lunar night and day. Just south of the lunar equator is a series of three craters, starting with Ptolemaeus. AboutContinue reading "The Sky Today on Tuesday, June 3: A trio of craters"

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If you have the time and clear sky to the north, you might want to check out an open cluster that is seldom observed. An “average joe” open cluster in Cassiopeia nonetheless appears fairly bright and presents an almost circular pattern of stars.  This is NGC 225, sometimes called the Sailboat Cluster, or more recently theContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: Open cluster NGC 225"

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The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured a breathtaking new deep field image of the galaxy cluster Abell S1063, surpassing Hubble’s previous view in both depth and detail. Abell S1063, located 4.5 billion light-years away in the constellation Grus the Crane, acts as a gravitational lens. This massive cluster bends and focuses the lightContinue reading "JWST gazes into the distant past through gravitational lens"

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On May 20, 2025, President Donald Trump announced plans to construct the “Golden Dome,” a multibillion-dollar missile defense system that would utilize space-based weapons and satellites to intercept ballistic attacks against the United States. This announcement stems from Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order titled “Iron Dome for America.” Inspired by Israel’s Iron Dome and PresidentContinue reading "Here’s how Trump’s Golden Dome would work — and why some call it “a fantasy”"

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Astronomers say our galaxy hasn’t seen a supernova in 400 years. Why don’t they count the 1987 supernova?  Judy PearceBelton, Texas The 1987 supernova (SN 1987A) occurred in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), not the Milky Way. The LMC is a smaller satellite of the Milky Way, but astronomers still consider it to be outsideContinue reading "When was the last supernova seen in the Milky Way?"

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On April 15, many of us in the eclipse community received this message from Fred Espenak, the man who for years was affectionately referred to as Mr. Eclipse: Dear Friends.  I want to share some sad news. I was diagnosed with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) five years ago. I did not have any significant symptomsContinue reading "Farewell, Mr. Eclipse: Fred Espenak dies at 71"

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In this episode, Astronomy magazine Editor Dave Eicher invites you to head out before sunrise and face east. There, you’ll spot Venus, sometimes called Earth’s sister planet. You won’t have any trouble finding it because only the Sun and the Moon shine more brightly. In fact, if your location is dark enough, the light from Venus mightContinue reading "This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher: Venus in the Morning Sky"

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Kfir Simon, taken from Tivoli Farm, Namibia Unlike a star cluster, whose members are bound by their own gravity, a star cloud is simply a dense concentration of stars, appearing exactly as it sounds. NGC 206 (at center) is the brightest star cloud in the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), captured here with a 24-inch scope atContinue reading "A distant star cloud"

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Four centuries ago, Johannes Kepler established three laws of planetary motion that accurately describe how planets in the solar system orbit the Sun. That might be enough for most; however, befitting the Renaissance period in which he lived, Kepler also revised the field of astrology, wrote a treatise on optics, established the field of crystallography withContinue reading "‘Astronomical Dream’: Johannes Kepler wrote the first science-fiction story"

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About 63 hours after its launch, Surveyor 1 landed on the Moon on June 2, 1966. The 2,200-pound (998 kilograms) craft touched down inside a 62-mile (100 kilometers) crater north of Flamsteed Crater in Oceanus Procellarum, or the Ocean of Storms. Surveyor 1 took more than 11,000 photos, and measured the Moon’s temperature and theContinue reading "June 2, 1966: Surveyor 1 lands on the Moon"

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The smaller constellation Leo Minor lies to the upper right (north) of Leo in the west this evening. Leo Minor appears crouched above its larger counterpart, sandwiched between Leo and Ursa Major. The easiest way to find it is to search the space between two famous asterisms: the Sickle of Leo and the Big Dipper. Continue reading "The Sky Today on Monday, June 2: The Little Lion"

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The innermost planets straddle nighttime, with Mercury in the evening and the greatest western elongation of Venus in the morning. Jupiter joins Mercury in early twilight for a few evenings, both setting quickly. Distant Mars lingers with Leo after dark, as our own planet hustles along its orbit well ahead of the Red Planet. SaturnContinue reading "June 2025: What’s in the sky this month? Titan’s shadow transits Saturn, and Mercury meets with Jupiter in the evening"

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The first evening of June finds Mars in the company of a lovely crescent Moon. The Red Planet reached opposition back in January and has faded considerably since then, glowing now at 1st magnitude. Mars spends the month moving eastward against the backdrop of Leo the Lion. It shares a small patch of sky withContinue reading "June 2025: What’s in the Southern Hemisphere sky this month?"

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The Moon passes 1.4° north of Mars at 6 A.M. EDT; the two are visible together this evening, slowly setting in the western sky and visible for a few hours after sunset. Both now lie in western Leo, with the Moon close to the Lion’s bright heart, Regulus (Alpha [α] Leonis). This magnitude 1.4 starContinue reading "The Sky Today on Sunday, June 1: The Moon passes Mars"

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The Trump administration announced Saturday, May 31, that it would withdraw the nomination of entrepreneur and private astronaut Jared Isaacman for NASA administrator. The move came just days before the Senate was scheduled to vote on his nomination, where he was widely expected to be confirmed. The Senate committee on commerce, science, and transportation hadContinue reading "Trump withdraws nomination of Jared Isaacman to lead NASA"

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Venus reaches its greatest western elongation (46°) from the Sun at midnight EDT. Earth’s sister planet is now visible in the early-morning sky, and today Venus rises in the east at 3:30 A.M. local daylight time — roughly two hours before the Sun. That gives observers plenty of time to view the bright morning planet,Continue reading "The Sky Today on Saturday, May 31: Venus at greatest western elongation"

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When you’re gazing at objects in the northern sky, do not forget to look at one of the richest open star clusters you’ll ever see. NGC 7789 in Cassiopeia is particularly notable for its huge mass of relatively faint stars, all set in a rich Milky Way star field, which makes for a great sceneContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: NGC 7789"

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Overall Photons: Francisco Javier Pérez Olvera, Manuel Alejandro Chavarría Silva, George William Hoffman, Kollar Istvan, Jonathan Schwab, Giovanni Lombardi, Fumio Saito, Francesco Morini, David Serquera, Lorenzo Lilli & Giampiero Lilli, Gianni Melis, Richard Mongold, Emanuele La Barbera, Michele Mazzola, Ashley Brown, Satoshi Iino, Jeff Ratino, Ulli Wittur Fee, Marco Martinelli, Roberto Volpini, Krzysztof Gaudy, PatrickContinue reading "The hidden bridge of Markarian’s Chain"

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Because astronomers have divided the globe into 24 time zones, using one clock time worldwide is impractical. That’s why the times of astronomical events are often given in Universal Time (UT). This practice started in 1928, when the International Astronomical Union recommended that title for the time used in the compilation of astronomical almanacs. UTContinue reading "Michael’s Miscellany: Universal Time"

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Take a peek at the early-morning duo of Saturn and Neptune, rising together in Pisces around 2:30 A.M. local daylight time. By 4 A.M. local daylight time they are some 15° high, with blazing Venus visible to their lower left. Saturn stands out well to the naked eye at magnitude 1.1, but Neptune (magnitude 7.8)Continue reading "The Sky Today on Friday, May 30: Saturn and Neptune rise together"

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Sky This Week is brought to you in part by Celestron. Friday, May 30The crescent Moon lies in Cancer this evening, just a few degrees from the stunning Beehive Cluster (M44). If it seems that this cluster is mentioned in this column a lot — it is! The Beehive lies close to the ecliptic, theContinue reading "The Sky This Week from May 30 to June 6: All eyes on Venus"

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The world is overflowing with crazily-named deep-sky objects. However, I am guilty of one such naming, many years ago, in Astronomy and Deep Sky magazines — the Owl Cluster, NGC 457, in Cassiopeia.  This object was discovered by William Herschel on August 18, 1780. When I first looked at this cluster with my Celestron 8,Continue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: The Owl Cluster"

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Vikas Chander from New Delhi, India The faint planetary nebula Abell 7 in Lepus the Hare has an overall spherical appearance — the result of a dying star blowing its outer layers off into space. But deep narrowband imaging reveals complex detail in this expanding shell. For this Hα/OIII/RGB image, the photographer captured 67⅓ hoursContinue reading "A planetary in the Hare"

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Astronomy is one of the fastest changing sciences, and the equipment we use to explore and record the universe is advancing just as quickly. Smart telescopes epitomize the evolving equipment scene, combining a telescope, digital camera, and automated tracking in one sleek package. They allow novice astrophotographers to capture stunning deep-sky images on their first clearContinue reading "Review: DwarfLab’s DWARF 3 Smart Telescope"

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Binocular observers, this one’s for you: Upgren 1, a small grouping of stars discovered in 1963 within the constellation Canes Venatici. High in the west around 10:30 P.M. local daylight time, the Hunting Dogs lie beneath the curve of the Big Dipper’s long handle.  Upgren 1 contains about 10 stars in an area roughly 14’Continue reading "The Sky Today on Thursday, May 29: Pull out binoculars for Upgren 1"

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As we’ve seen in recent posts, the northern constellation Cassiopeia is chock-full of intriguing nebulae and bright star clusters. A large and relatively bright emission nebula among this group, Sharpless 2–157, is rarely observed by amateur astronomers. It is sometimes called the Lobster Claw Nebula due to its distinctive shape.  This big nebula lies inContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: Sharpless 2–157"

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The ninth integrated test flight of SpaceX’s Starship rocket and Super Heavy booster avoided previous issues but encountered new ones as the company aims to ramp up launches this year. Let’s begin with the good. Flight 9 marked the first time SpaceX used a previously flown Super Heavy booster, which was caught back at theContinue reading "SpaceX Starship reaches orbit but misses key targets"

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Ashish Sinojia/Santanu Sir/Amit Sengar, taken from Kasheli, Maharashtra, India Waves wash ashore at Devghali Beach beneath a cave lit by Sinojia, as the Milky Way arches overhead. The photographers used a Sony mirrorless camera and 20mm lens at f/2.2 to capture eleven 30-second sky frames at ISO 2500 and five 58-second foreground frames at ISOContinue reading "The cave and the galaxy"

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The Moon passes 5° north of Jupiter at 9 A.M. EDT. Just six percent illuminated by this evening, you can try to spot the young crescent Moon hanging above the gas giant in the western sky after sunset.  An hour after the Sun disappears, Jupiter (shining at magnitude –1.9) is just 4° high in theContinue reading "The Sky Today on Wednesday, May 28: Glimpse Jupiter and its Galilean moons"

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Update: The Long March 3B rocket carrying Tianwen-2 successfully launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China’s Sichuan province at 1:31 P.M. EDT on Wednesday, May 28. Six centuries ago, Admiral Zheng He commanded seven “treasure voyages” around Asia in the halcyon days of China’s Ming Dynasty. His fleet of colossal four-masted wooden junksContinue reading "Tianwen-2 is voyaging to an asteroid and a comet"

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The far northern sky holds its richest region in Cassiopeia, a splendid area of bright Milky Way stars and gas. One of the greatest nebulae in the far north is NGC 7635, the Bubble Nebula, so named for its remarkable spherical bubble visible in images.  This object is an emission nebula with a reasonably highContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: The Bubble Nebula"

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SpaceX’s colossal Starship rocket and Super Heavy booster are poised to return to action Tuesday evening after the company wrapped up its investigation into the 400-foot-tall vehicle’s eighth test flight in March. Starship exploded during both that mission and Flight 7 in January. The FAA issued a vehicle return to flight determination for Starship on Friday, clearing theContinue reading "SpaceX Starship set for ninth test flight"

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Gianni Tumino from Ragusa, Sicily, Italy A shower of glowing material erupts from Mount Etna next to the Pleiades star cluster (M45) at lower right in this 1.9-second exposure taken July 31, 2024 with a Canon DSLR and 300mm lens at f/4.

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In this episode, Astronomy magazine Editor Dave Eicher invites you to head out a bit later in the evening this time of year to see the Milky Way. Be sure to go out before the Moon comes up. The Milky Way rises in the east several hours after sunset and stretches from the north, where you’ll seeContinue reading "This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher: The Milky Way"

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If you’ve got binoculars or a small scope at your disposal, take them out tonight to observe the lovely — and bright — edge-on lenticular galaxy NGC 3115, sometimes called the Spindle Galaxy. Located in Sextans, you’ll find this galaxy still 25° high in the southwest 90 minutes after sunset, in a region to theContinue reading "The Sky Today on Tuesday, May 27: The Spindle Galaxy, bright and beautiful"

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Half a century after the Apollo astronauts left the last bootprints in lunar dust, the Moon has once again become a destination of fierce ambition and delicate engineering. This time, it’s not just superpowers racing to plant flags, but also private companies, multinational partnerships and robotic scouts aiming to unlock the Moon’s secrets and layContinue reading "Landing on the Moon is an incredibly difficult feat — here’s how 2025 is shaping up"

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With New Moon occurring late tonight at 11:02 P.M. EDT, today is an excellent opportunity for yet more deep-sky observing. This morning, we’re dipping into the Lagoon Nebula (M8) in Sagittarius. This stunning nebula is best seen around 3 A.M. local daylight time, when it stands 25° high in the south.  The Lagoon lies withinContinue reading "The Sky Today on Monday, May 26: Dip your toes in the Lagoon"

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On April 14, 2025, Blue Origin launched six women — Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyễn, Gayle King, Katy Perry, Kerianne Flynn and Lauren Sánchez — on a suborbital journey to the edge of space. The headlines called it a historic moment for women in space. But as a tourism educator, I paused — not because IContinue reading "Space tourism’s growth blurs the line between scientific and symbolic achievement — a tourism scholar explains"

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Mars has now crossed the border from Cancer into Leo, standing in the far western regions of the Lion’s domain. The Red Planet is visible after sunset this evening, slowly sinking in the west and setting around 1 A.M. local daylight time.  This offers plenty of time to inspect the ruddy world, which now glowsContinue reading "The Sky Today on Sunday, May 25: Mars joins the Sickle of Leo"

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Andy Weir’s bestselling story The Martian predicts that by 2035 NASA will have landed humans on Mars three times, perfected return-to-Earth flight systems and collaborated with the China National Space Administration. We are now 10 years past the Hollywood adaptation’s 2015 release and 10 years shy of its fictional timeline. At this midpoint, Mars exploration looks aContinue reading "How close are we to ‘The Martian’? A planetary scientist checks in"

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Michael John Griffin/Warren Keller The North America Nebula (NGC 7000) glows in Cygnus at magnitude 4 at a distance of 2,600 light-years. This image was taken from Los Angeles with a one-shot color camera and 8 hours of exposure, roughly half of which was taken with dual-band Hα/OIII and SII/OIII filters and processed in theContinue reading "Cosmic continent"

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The delicate waning crescent Moon stands directly to the left of the bright planet Venus before dawn. An hour before sunrise, the pair is some 10° high in the east, easily visible together in Pisces the Fish.  The Moon is now just 11 percent illuminated, well on its way to New in just two days.Continue reading "The Sky Today on Saturday, May 24: Revisit the Moon and Venus"

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In the world of deep-sky observing, we think of major classes of objects: star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies. But once in a while an exception to this classification arises as a favorite object for observers. Back in 1980, the great Walter Scott Houston wrote one of his celebrated columns in Sky & Telescope and addressedContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: Kemble’s Cascade"

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Twentieth-century explorations answered many questions about our satellite and its place in the solar system. But they also raised many new and challenging questions that still remain unanswered.  One of these enduring mysteries has been the lunar magnetic field. The Moon generates no magnetic field of its own today. Yet analysis of Apollo rock samplesContinue reading "Asteroids hitting the Moon may have spiked its magnetic field"

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On May 21, the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center announced the discovery of 2017 OF201, which, because of its distance beyond Neptune, is classified as a trans-Neptunian object (TNO). The science team that found the new body was led by Sihao Cheng, Martin A., and Helen Chooljian Member of the Institute for Advanced Study’sContinue reading "Does our solar system have a new dwarf planet?"

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The Moon is now situated between magnitude 1.1 Saturn and magnitude –4.5 Venus in the east an hour before dawn.  If you were outside yesterday morning, you’ll note that the Moon is now a thinner crescent as it wanes toward New. Only its western limb is directly sunlit. But look for earthshine lighting up itsContinue reading "The Sky Today on Friday, May 23: The crescent Moon and Venus"

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Sky This Week is brought to you in part by Celestron. Friday, May 23The Moon passes 4° north of Venus at 8 P.M. EDT, although neither is visible at that time.  Instead, let’s look tonight for the small constellation Sagitta the Arrow, which lies north of Aquila the Eagle. Although Sagitta is small, covering justContinue reading "The Sky This Week from May 23 to 30: Mars moves into Leo"

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Let’s visit another galaxy in the mostly stark constellation Camelopardalis — which, although it is unexciting to naked-eye viewers, is an area of sky that contains some interesting, if somewhat isolated, deep-sky objects.  IC 342 is a big barred spiral galaxy of morphological type SAB(rs)cd. It glows brightly at magnitude 9.1 but has a lowContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: Face-on spiral IC 342"

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Mark Germani from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada M35 and NGC 2158 are two open star clusters that appear next to each other in Gemini. M35 is the larger and closer of the two at a distance of 3,000 light-years; NGC 2158 is older and lies five times farther away. The imager took 2.4 hours ofContinue reading "An open cluster duo"

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While mosquitoes will attack whoever is handiest, they prefer adults to children, women to men, and pregnant women most. (They find ovulating women more attractive than those menstruating.) Movement attracts mosquitoes, so swatting at them is a good way to get them swarming around you. Contrary to popular belief, colors of clothing are not importantContinue reading "Michael’s Miscellany: Mosquitoes"

The post Michael’s Miscellany: Mosquitoes appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

The Moon hangs near Saturn and Neptune in the early-morning sky, and it’s best to catch them earlier rather than later. Try looking east 90 minutes before sunrise, where you’ll easily spot the crescent Moon in southwestern Pisces, below the Circlet asterism.  Just to the lower left of the Moon is 1st-magnitude Saturn, which standsContinue reading "The Sky Today on Thursday, May 22: The Moon hangs with Saturn and Neptune"

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One of the most enjoyable things about observing galaxies with your backyard scope is that there are so many unusual forms we can see. Another great example of a distorted galaxy lies in the northern constellation Camelopardalis, the Giraffe. It is NGC 2146, sometimes called the Dusty Hand Galaxy for its unusual appearance.  This strangeContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: The Dusty Hand Galaxy"

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Virgo the Maiden is the second-largest constellation, covering 3.1 percent of the sky. It contains 11 Messier objects, tons of worthy targets from the New General Catalogue, and more faint galaxies than you can count. In this brief guide, I want to remove the intimidation of this constellation’s size and provide a list of the bestContinue reading "Michael’s Miscellany: Virgo’s finest galaxies"

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Salvo Lauricella, imaged from Syracuse, Italy The large pair of sunspots in the active region AR 14079 illustrates their magnetically bipolar nature — one with north polarity and one with south — in this series of images taken May 1 in Hα, Ca-K, and white light.

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Note: This post contains affiliate links. When you buy equipment through the links on this page, we may earn a commission. Listen, you really don’t want to get your dad a tie or another pair of socks for Father’s Day. And a gift certificate to some restaurant he goes to frequently is boring. Instead, why notContinue reading "Stellar gifts for Dad: 10 astronomy essentials for Father’s Day"

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Virgo the Maiden is draped across the southern sky late this evening, offering excellent views of a famous galaxy within its bounds: M104, also known as the Sombrero Galaxy.  Glowing at magnitude 8, this edge-on spiral is some 30 million light-years from Earth. It boasts a thin, dark dust lane that blocks light across itsContinue reading "The Sky Today on Wednesday, May 21: The Sombrero Galaxy"

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The sky is full of really weird stuff. Many of the strangest objects are galaxies — so numerous in the cosmos — that show unusual forms. One of these great objects lies in the constellation Camelopardalis, an area of sky that looks pretty stark. But if you look closely at certain areas in such places in theContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: The Integral Sign Galaxy"

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The same side of the Moon always faces us. This means that we never get a chance to see the other side of it unless a spacecraft flies there. If we could see it in the night sky, though, it would be like a whole different world. Where the lunar face we’re used to, theContinue reading "The Moon’s two different faces"

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Sara Harvey from Cork, Ireland The region around Polaris is rich with gas and dust that lies within the Milky Way, captured here with a 3.4-inch refractor and 16½ hours of LRGB exposure. These “objects” are also called integrated flux nebulae as they are faintly illuminated by the combined light of the Milky Way’s stars.

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Last Quarter Moon occurs at 7:59 A.M. EDT. This phase of the Moon offers observers a chance to focus on our satellite’s western limb, including the huge, dark Ocean of Storms that stretches more than 1,600 miles (2,500 km) and is prominent in the lunar southwest.  A much smaller but nonetheless noticeable dark feature southwestContinue reading "The Sky Today on Tuesday, May 20: The Moon at Last Quarter"

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The sky is full of strange galaxies. A century ago Edwin Hubble discovered this, and a slew of researchers in the past century have cataloged these strange and troubled objects, perhaps most importantly Halton Arp with his Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies.  There’s a bright and highly distorted galaxy in the constellation Pisces, lying some 100Continue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: Peculiar galaxy NGC 520"

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Amirreza Kamkar The Moon, Saturn, and Venus meet in a conjunction, seen Jan. 4 over the rocky shoreline of the Persian Gulf in southern Iran. The photographer used Canon mirrorless camera and wide-angle lens at 15mm to take a 4-second exposure at f/4 and ISO 1600.

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In this episode, Astronomy magazine Editor Dave Eicher invites you to head out in the early morning hours of May 22 and observe a close pairing of Venus and the Moon. About once a month these two celestial standouts come near each other, and this would be a nice one to photograph. The Moon will be aContinue reading "This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher: The Moon and Venus"

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The Orion Nebula (M42) and Carina Nebula (NGC 3372) may reign supreme among star-forming regions in the Milky Way, but they pale in comparison to the Tarantula Nebula (NGC 2070). The Tarantula resides in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to our own located 160,000 light-years away. This nebula spans roughly 1,000 light-years andContinue reading "The Tarantula Nebula casts a wide web"

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An hour after sunset, you’ll find the constellation Leo the Lion pointing head-down toward the horizon in the southwest. The brightest star in this constellation is Alpha (α) Leonis, also known as Regulus. And just over 5° west of this star is a sun called R Leonis, the first variable star identified in the Lion. Continue reading "The Sky Today on Monday, May 19: The variable star R Leonis"

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The bright beacon of Jupiter stands 2° due north of Zeta (ζ) Tauri in the evening sky tonight. Look west and hour after sunset to find the magnitude –1.9 gas giant still 11° high. Zeta Tau, which shines at magnitude 3, lies to the planet’s lower left. Near this pairing is the location of M1,Continue reading "The Sky Today on Sunday, May 18: Jupiter and Zeta Tauri"

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Visible for some five hours after sunset is Mars, making its way through Cancer. Shining at 1st magnitude, this ruddy point of light is easy to find in the western sky during May evenings, standing directly above the bright star Procyon in Canis Minor as these constellations set.  Through a telescope, Mars’ disk spans justContinue reading "The Sky Today on Saturday, May 17: Mars crosses Cancer"

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Coddington’s Nebula is an obscure, fuzzy object discovered by the American astronomer Edwin Coddington (1870–1950) in 1898. The popular name for this object is a misnomer; it’s actually a galaxy, and was identified as such by the 1930s, in the era when Edwin Hubble was working through the initial classification of galaxies. It is alsoContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: Coddington’s Nebula"

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The glowing veils of the aurora appear regularly in the sky above Earth and make for great images, but capturing this phenomenon on other planets has always been more of a challenge. Recent observations of Mars and Jupiter have now given scientists unprecedented views of these extraterrestrial aurorae that will help improve our understanding ofContinue reading "Our newest look at aurorae on Mars and Jupiter"

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Chirag Upreti from New York City Stetind Mountain — sometimes referred to as Norway’s “national mountain” — lies beneath a stunning display of aurora in this shot taken with a Sony mirrorless camera and 12mm fisheye lens.

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High in the southern sky around 10 P.M. local daylight time is the constellation Coma Berenices. Look for it to the upper right of the bright star Arcturus in Boötes and to the left of Denebola, the sun marking Leo the Lion’s tail.  Coma Berenices might be a relatively unobtrusive constellation, but it houses aContinue reading "The Sky Today on Friday, May 16: The Coma Cluster"

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Sky This Week is brought to you in part by Celestron. Friday, May 16Spring is a great time to observe star clusters, so tonight our target is the globular M68 in Hydra.  Look south after sunset and you’ll find the eastern end of the Water Snake just below Virgo and Corvus. M68 is a relativelyContinue reading "The Sky This Week from May 16 to 23: Venus meets the morning Moon"

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Of the approximately 3,000 planetary nebulae known in the galaxy, most are asymmetrical. But one planetary in Camelopardalis, just 7.5° from Polaris, is the poster child for symmetry.  The Lemon Slice Nebula (IC 3568) is a young planetary spanning only some 0.4 light-year. Its central star is dying and glows feebly at magnitude 12.3. The nebulaContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: The Lemon Slice Nebula"

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Panagiotis (Panos) Vlachos, Queen’s University Belfast Satellites are the invisible backbone of modern life. They guide airplanes, help us find our way with GPS, deliver TV and internet, and even help emergency services respond to disasters. But a new kind of computer – quantum computers – could put all of this at risk. Quantum computersContinue reading "Quantum computers could crack the security codes used by satellites"

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India is home to some unique (and magnificent) landscapes spread across the country. This time, we travel to the extreme western parts of India to explore some of the ancient landscapes of the country. One of the biggest perks of doing astrophotography is to get a chance to explore these exciting places and photograph them.Continue reading "Imaging Earth and the sky above it"

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Stian Mulelid Rondestveit, taken from Stølsheimen, Norway The Crescent Nebula (NGC 6888) lies in a rich sea of hydrogen in Cygnus in this image taken with a 2-inch refractor and a one-shot color camera. The nebula was sculpted by the winds of a star belonging to the rare Wolf-Rayet set of hot and massive stars.

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The universe is full of extreme phenomena. Perhaps this is what draws some people to astronomy — it has some of the most extreme physics out there. And supernovae are some of the most extraordinary objects that also have the benefit of being visible to astronomers here on Earth, even long after the explosive eventContinue reading "Explore explosive supernovae from your backyard"

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The main-belt asteroid 3 Juno reached opposition yesterday afternoon, meaning it now lies directly opposite the Sun in our sky, rising at sunset and setting at sunrise.  Two hours after sunset tonight, Juno is 30° high in the southeast. Glowing at magnitude 10, it’s within reach of binoculars or a small telescope. You can findContinue reading "The Sky Today on Thursday, May 15: Juno and M5"

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The astronomer Halton C. Arp (1927–2013) was a very well-known researcher of galaxies and other distant objects. He is celebrated for a number of reasons, not the least of which is his magnificent Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, published in 1966. I was privileged to know “Chip” Arp, as he was known, and he was aContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: A great redshift controversy"

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Deep observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have revealed an exceptionally large galaxy in the early universe. It’s a cosmic giant whose light has travelled over 12 billion years to reach us. We’ve dubbed it the Big Wheel, with our findings published March 17 in Nature Astronomy. This giant disk galaxy existed withinContinue reading "Astronomers have discovered the Big Wheel — here’s why it’s significant"

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Today, I want to talk about the equatorial coordinate system. Start with this: What if we could project Earth’s coordinates of longitude and latitude into the sky? Latitude wouldn’t be a problem, but longitude would change continuously because of Earth’s rotation. Somehow, we need to attach longitude to the sky. If we project Earth’s equatorContinue reading "Michael’s Miscellany: Coordinates"

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Jeffrey Horne, taken from Nashville, Tennessee Sharpless 2–240 — also known as the Spaghetti Nebula — is the visible legacy of an exploded star, its energy having propelled debris into its surroundings. This image represents 567 hours of exposure in SHO filters from Bortle 8/9 skies taken over three winters, plus 1¼ hours of RGBContinue reading "To a boil"

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The Moon passes 0.3° south of Antares in the constellation Scorpius at 1 A.M. EDT. The pair is high in the southern sky at this time, particularly for observers in the eastern half of the U.S., offering an excellent view. (Observers farther west will want to wait an additional hour or two for the regionContinue reading "The Sky Today on Wednesday, May 14: The Moon and Antares"

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With great, powerful space telescopes come great, powerful computational models. Astronomers have combined X-ray, optical, and infrared data from observatories including NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescopic Array to create a new collection of 3D models: one of a young star andContinue reading "View the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant in 3D "

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One of the extreme northern sky’s most entertaining deep-sky objects, the Cat’s Eye Nebula in Draco (NGC 6543), is a planetary nebula with a high surface brightness. Discovered by William Herschel in 1786, it was the first planetary whose spectrum was observed, in 1864, by William Huggins. He therefore demonstrated that planetary nebulae are gaseous.Continue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: The Cat’s Eye Nebula"

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April 2025 was a busy month for space. Pop icon Katy Perry joined five other civilian women on a quick jaunt to the edge of space, making headlines. Meanwhile, another group of people at the United Nations was contemplating a critical issue for the future of space exploration: the discovery, extraction and utilization of naturalContinue reading "The law doesn’t protect sites on the Moon – a lawyer describes a framework that could"

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Science textbooks may be in for another revision. Our solar system shrank from nine planets to eight after the International Astronomical Union demoted Pluto in 2006. But there may yet be another world lurking beyond Neptune — and astronomers may have just found it. In 2016, astronomers proposed that our solar system could harbor a stealthy ninth planet basedContinue reading "Have astronomers found Planet Nine?"

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Chris Schur, taken from Happy Jack, Arizona Sharpless 2-264 is a nebula with emission and a molecular cloud surrounding the star Lambda Orionis. Its nickname, the Angelfish Nebula, is due to its profile in shorter exposures, though it appears rounder in this deeper exposure. The imager used a 135mm f/2 lens and monochrome camera withContinue reading "The cosmic angelfish"

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Mercury is quickly dropping out of sight, so catch this early-morning planet while you still can. Today you’ll find the solar system’s smallest world just 3° high in the east 20 minutes before sunrise. Shining at magnitude –0.6, Mercury is readily visible, though not as eye-catchingly bright as blazing Venus (magnitude –4.6) some 26.5° toContinue reading "The Sky Today on Tuesday, May 13: Catch you last glimpses of Mercury"

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After failing to make it past Earth orbit on March 31, 1972, the remains of a Venus mission launched by the former Soviet Union circled our planet for years and was given the name Cosmos (or Kosmos) 482. While the rocket stage and other pieces returned to Earth weeks later, the lander itself made anContinue reading "Failed Soviet-era spacecraft returned to Earth on Saturday"

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Our Local Group of galaxies contains at least 80 members, the vast majority of which are dwarfs. These small galaxies are somewhat hard to detect in or near the plane of the Milky Way (thus, the uncertainty about the number); one such galaxy is the Ursa Minor Dwarf Galaxy. It was discovered by A.G. WilsonContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: The Ursa Minor Dwarf Galaxy"

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I’ve long wondered whether dew point or relative humidity is more important for good seeing. Which would be better: a cool night with lower dew point but higher humidity, or a warm night with higher dew point but lower humidity? William ShepardTroy, Michigan Dew point/relative humidity questions come up fairly often and this is aContinue reading "Is dew point or relative humidity more important for good astronomical seeing?"

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When you put your hand out the window of a moving car, you feel a force pushing against you called drag. This force opposes a moving vehicle, and it’s part of the reason why your car naturally slows to a stop if you take your foot off the gas pedal. But drag doesn’t just slowContinue reading "How spacecraft ‘brake’ in space using drag"

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In this episode, Astronomy magazine Editor Dave Eicher invites you to head out and observe a planetary nebula in the constellation Ursa Major the Great Bear. Amateur astronomers call it the Owl Nebula because it has two dark circles superimposed on a bright round background. Overall, it looks like the face of an owl. Also known asContinue reading "This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher: The Owl Nebula"

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Just a few decades ago, when we glanced skyward, we didn’t know for certain whether any star visible to the naked eye hosts planets like our own. Now, NASA scientists estimate that, on average, there may be at least one planet for every star in the Milky Way. That’s billions of extrasolar planets in ourContinue reading "These five famous stars in the sky host exoplanets — observe them tonight"

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Chris Cook from Harwich, Massachusetts The salt flats of Badwater Basin — the lowest point in North America — are lit by a First Quarter Moon in in this star trail shot representing 6 hours of exposure.

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Full Moon occurs at 12:56 P.M. EDT this afternoon. May’s Full Moon is also called the Flower Moon and because our satellite is still near apogee, it will appear some 29’ across, slightly smaller than the Full Moon’s average size (about 31’) in the sky.  The Full Moon rises roughly opposite the Sun, so LunaContinue reading "The Sky Today on Monday, May 12: May’s Full Moon, Mars, and the Beehive Cluster"

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The gas giant Jupiter still dominates the constellation Taurus as it sets in the west after sunset. Jupiter now stands just to the right of Alheka (Zeta Tauri), one of the tips of the Bull’s two horns. The magnitude –1.9 planet remains the brightest point of light in the constellation, making it easy to centerContinue reading "The Sky Today on Sunday, May 11: Callisto grazes Jupiter"

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The Moon passes 0.4° south of Spica at 4 A.M. EDT. The best time for observing this pairing is in the few hours between midnight and 3 A.M. local daylight time, when they are still comfortably high above the horizon.  At that time, turn west to see the nearly Full Moon (now 95 percent lit)Continue reading "The Sky Today on Saturday, May 10: The Moon meets Spica"

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Venera 13, launched by the Soviets in 1981, captured this image of the surface of Venus. Dr. Ksanfomality/Astronomicheskii Vestnik Editor’s note: This story was originally published Aug. 26, 2020. It was updated May 9, 2025, with details of the failed mission Kosmos-482. The Pioneer and Voyager probes the United States sent to explore the outerContinue reading "The Venera program: Interplanetary probes from behind the Iron Curtain"

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In 1958 the great extragalactic astronomer George Abell of UCLA compiled a catalog of galaxy clusters. It was extended by Abell and collaborators in 1987 and eventually contained 4,076 clusters. Abell 2256 is a rich cluster lying in Ursa Minor. It contains more than 500 members and lies about 800 million light-years away. The clusterContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: Abell 2256"

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Congratulations to all Catholics. Yesterday, your College of Cardinals elected a new pope. In honor of him taking the name Leo XIV, I thought this would be a good time to tell you some facts about the constellation Leo the Lion. Actually, to commemorate the new pope, 14 facts. I) Leo is a springtime constellation in the Northern Hemisphere.Continue reading "Michael’s Miscellany: Leo the Great"

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During the height of the Cold War in the 1960s and 1970s, the USSR launched 29 spacecraft towards Venus, the planet scientists call Earth’s “twin sister”. Three flew past Venus, and went into orbit around the Sun. Sixteen orbited or landed on Venus, where they experienced a climate often described as “hellish”. Ten got stuckContinue reading "More than 50 years later, a failed Soviet spacecraft is about to return to Earth"

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Mark Johnston from Scottsdale, Arizona This large ejection of plasma on the Sun “looks like a hummingbird catching a mosquito,” the imager noted. He captured the feature March 24 with a 6-inch apochromat, a Daystar Hα “eyepiece,” and a monochrome solar camera.

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Asteroid 9 Metis reaches opposition at 2 A.M. EDT in the constellation Libra — not far from Vesta, which reached opposition a week ago. Visible from sundown to sunup, the best time to look for Metis is around local midnight, when it is transiting and stands highest in the southern sky. Metis is shining atContinue reading "The Sky Today on Friday, May 9: Metis reaches opposition"

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Sky This Week is brought to you in part by Celestron. Friday, May 9Asteroid 9 Metis reaches at opposition at 2 A.M. EDT in the constellation Libra. The 10th-magnitude main-belt world is visible with binoculars or a telescope all night from sunset to sunrise. It stands highest around local midnight when it appears in theContinue reading "The Sky This Week from May 9 to 16: May’s Full Flower Moon blooms"

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Located between Mars and Jupiter lies Vesta, the second-largest body within the main asteroid belt. For generations, astronomers thought Vesta wasn’t an ordinary asteroid: It also contained properties of a planet, with layers forming a crust, mantle, and core. However, a recent analysis using data from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft mission may force astronomers to throwContinue reading "Vesta is simpler inside than previously thought"

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Northern Cepheus contains a strange nebula with a very long name. Gyulbudaghian’s Nebula (JAI-al-boo-dag-ian) was discovered by Armenian astronomer Armen Gyulbudaghian in 1977 and its variability was demonstrated by Martin Cohen in 1981.  It is a strange variable nebula associated with the variable star PV Cephei, which ranges from magnitude 14.6 to 18.1 and liesContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: Gyulbudaghian’s Nebula"

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Today I want to talk about something beginning observers tend to overlook. It a process of the human eye called dark adaptation. In terrestrial terms, it helps us see better at night and in dark places. That makes it important for our safety. For amateur astronomers, however, it’s important because it allows us to seeContinue reading "Michael’s Miscellany: Dark adaption"

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Women have long contributed meaningful scientific discoveries to the field of astronomy; however, men have primarily dominated the vocation. As of 2019, women earn about 40 percent of the Ph.D.s granted in the field of astronomy, but that has not always been the case. And there are many cases of women working in astronomy onlyContinue reading "10 women who changed astronomy"

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Josh Dury, taken from Somerset, U.K. A parhelic circle — an optical phenomenon caused by sunlight reflecting off of atmospheric ice crystals — emerges in this photo from the Sun, which is simultaneously surrounded by a halo. A parhelic circle has the unique characteristic of circling sky at the same altitude (angle above the horizon)Continue reading "Circling the Sun"

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High in the southern sky around 4 A.M. local daylight time is the stunning Swan Nebula (M17), also known as the Omega Nebula. It glides serenely through northern Sagittarius, far above the spout of the Teapot asterism as it sits right-side up in the sky this morning.  With no Moon above the horizon, if you’veContinue reading "The Sky Today on Thursday, May 8: The swimming Swan Nebula"

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A recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters has provided the most precise distance to the Coma Cluster of galaxies yet — and also has deepened a crisis in cosmology. The problem is that when we look around the local universe, the universe seems to be expanding faster than predicted by the current modelsContinue reading "Why some astronomers are starting to doubt cosmology’s standard model"

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High at northern latitudes lies a spectacular and unique nebula you should observe if you’re not already familiar with it. The Iris Nebula (NGC 7023) is an odd reflection nebula in Cepheus, not far from the border with Draco. Because of its slight resemblance to an iris flower, observers long ago gave it its popularContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: The Iris Nebula"

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Beyond our solar system, sub-Neptunes — gassy planets larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune — reign as the most common type of exoplanet observed in our galaxy. Despite their prevalence, no such planets exist around our Sun, so these worlds have remained shrouded in mystery. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) recently observed exoplanetContinue reading "JWST reveals secrets of a sub-Neptune exoplanet"

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On May 7, 1617, the German astronomer David Fabricius passed away. A contemporary of Johannes Kepler, the two frequently corresponded. I thought about him the other day when I was observing the Sun. And although I’d rather celebrate his birthday (March 9, 1564), I didn’t want to wait another 10 months to do so. FabriciusContinue reading "Michael’s Miscellany: Celebrating David Fabricius"

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Sérgio Conceição from Elvas, Portugal The Milky Way arches above the Menhir of Meada, thought to be the largest example on the Iberian Peninsula of a menhir — stones placed upright by Bronze Age (or possibly earlier) peoples for reasons unknown. The imager used a Canon mirrorless camera and 15mm lens to take two minutesContinue reading "Standing stone"

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Venus blazes a bright magnitude –4.7 in the morning sky today. To its right, 1st-magnitude Saturn is also readily visible to the naked eye, while elusive Neptune lies between them. You’ll have a brief opportunity to catch the distant magnitude 7.8 ice giant in your sights with binoculars — or, better yet, a telescope —Continue reading "The Sky Today on Wednesday, May 7: View Venus, Saturn, and Neptune"

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The sky is filled with thousands of amazing objects for you to explore with binoculars or a small telescope. I’ll be highlighting an interesting object or group of objects in this new daily series, Deep-Sky Dreams. This takes me back to my earliest days in amateur astronomy, when I had a pair of binoculars, aContinue reading "Deep-Sky Dreams: The Cepheus Molecular Cloud"

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NASA launched the SPHEREx Space Observatory this year on March 25 — and the first results are in. The orange-hued image was taken at an infrared wavelength of 3.29 micrometers, capturing a cloud of molecules similar to smoke or soot. The blue-toned image is of the same portion of the sky, but was taken atContinue reading "NASA’s SPHEREx space telescope makes its debut"

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The NASA and European Space Agency’s Hubble Space Telescope snapped a mesmerizing shot of an astronomical oddball, known as Arp 184 or NGC 1961. This strange spiral galaxy’s single broad arm earned it a place in Halton Arp’s Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, published in 1966. That structure, along with multiple past supernovae, makes it anContinue reading "Hubble examines a twisted galaxy"

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I hope this series of thoughts (can I call them blogs?) help you become better observers. I’ll include observing tips and techniques, facts about constellations, reviews of books or websites, and trivia. Because there’s no right way to order this series, I’m just going to do the one I’m thinking about on that day. SomeContinue reading "Michael’s Miscellany: Aperture masks"

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Vikas Chander from New Delhi, India Abell 35 (Sharpless 2–313) is a nebula in Hydra surrounding a stellar binary, one of which is a white dwarf. The nebula resembles a planetary nebula, produced by a dying star in the process of becoming a white dwarf throwing off its outer layers. However, the prominent bow shockContinue reading "A shocking mystery"

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This morning is the best time to catch the annual Eta Aquariid meteors, born from the debris left by the famous Halley’s Comet.  The shower’s radiant lies in Aquarius, just to the lower left of the 3rd-magnitude star Sadalmelik as the constellation rises a few hours after midnight. That’s fine, though, because the best timeContinue reading "The Sky Today on Tuesday, May 6: The Eta Aquariids peak"

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