While it did not recreate the historic Super Heavy booster catch it pulled off last time, SpaceX continued to push the envelope during the sixth test flight of its Starship spacecraft. The largest and most powerful rocket ever built lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase launchpad in Texas on Tuesday evening, Super Heavy’s 33 Raptor engines creating aContinue reading "SpaceX Starship Flight 6: No booster catch, but still pushing the envelope"

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Not so far from Earth, an infant planet is just getting its start at life. And by peeking beneath the thick cocoon of material surrounding it, astronomers could be getting a rare chance to watch a world for which our solar system has no equivalent settle into its early life. The planet closely orbits theContinue reading "This young, shrouded super-Neptune could help teach us how such planets form"

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In October, The Wall Street Journal reported that Boeing may shed its space business to focus on commercial aircraft and defense systems. This could be due in part to this summer’s test flight of its Starliner crew transport to the International Space Station (ISS), which adversely reshaped public opinion of the beleaguered aerospace titan. ButContinue reading "The past, present, and future of Boeing in space"

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Jeff Schilling from Houston, Texas The dark nebulae LDN 935/6 contrast with billowing clouds of bright emission from the North America Nebula (NGC 7000). For this close-up study of light and dark in motion, the imager took 13¼ hours of exposure in Hubble-palette filters.

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The game is afoot! Astronomers may have found some of the universe’s missing matter, thanks to one team’s cosmic detective work. The case has been open for more than 20 years. In the 1990s and early 2000s, scientists sleuthed out the universe’s contents using observations from the cosmic microwave background radiation and Big Bang models.Continue reading "Scientists discover significant ‘missing matter’ in the gas between galaxy clusters"

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On Saturday, Nov. 16, in Flagstaff, Arizona, the astronomy world changed a bit.  Lowell Observatory has long been a beacon of history in the cosmic universe. Here, Boston Brahmin Percival Lowell founded an institution to study the heavens from the far west in 1894. Here he famously studied Mars, an early obsession, believing it toContinue reading "Lowell Observatory celebrates a monumental renewal"

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How big is the ellipse that our planet travels in a year around the Sun? J.J. MüdespacherMexico City, Mexico Earth’s orbit around the Sun is not circular, but an ellipse that is slightly elongated with an eccentricity of 0.017. (An eccentricity of 0 is a circle, while the dwarf planet Pluto has a relatively highContinue reading "How big is Earth’s orbit around the Sun?"

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SpaceX is targeting the sixth test flight of its Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy booster — which comprise the largest and most powerful rocket system ever built — as early as Monday. Both the rocket and booster were moved to the launch mount this week for stacking. The mission, which like previous Starship flights willContinue reading "SpaceX Starship Flight 6: What to watch for"

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Astronomer Francesco D’Eugenio wasn’t looking for a murdered galaxy.  His team set out to measure the motions of stars in a distant galaxy and to understand why they appeared so old. Similar massive galaxies in the early universe were typically bustling with new star formation, and D’Eugenio, a scientist at the Kavli Institute for CosmologyContinue reading "JWST just found a black hole starving its host galaxy to death"

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Kfir Simon, taken from Tivoli Farm, Namibia At a distance of 3,900 light-years in Norma the Square lies NGC 6164/5, also known as the Dragon’s Egg. Astronomers think the binary star at its center, HD 148937, was originally a triple system. The billowing outer shell was caused by stellar winds early in the system’s life;Continue reading "Draconic fratricide"

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Friday, November 15We’re starting out the week strong with the Moon on center stage. November’s Full Moon, also called the Beaver Moon, occurs at 4:29 P.M. EST. But there’s more to this Full Moon — it’s a Super Moon, which occurs when the Moon reaches Full near its closest point to Earth, called perigee. ItContinue reading "The Sky This Week from November 15 to 22: 2024’s last Super Moon occults the Pleiades"

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The European Space Agency’s Gaia emission has revealed two unexpected black holes orbiting stars like our own Sun. One minor problem: we’re not exactly sure how black holes like this should form. But a team of researchers might have an answer.  Astronomers can’t directly observe black holes. That’s because by definition they do not emitContinue reading "How some black holes maintain long-distance relationships"

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Researchers using the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope in Europe have discovered the second generation of Starlink satellites emit higher levels of radio waves that could pose a serious risk to radio astronomy. This issue of radio-wave emission is in addition to the sunlight that Starlink and other satellites reflect, which can be visibleContinue reading "New Starlink satellites could be 32 times brighter in radio waves than before"

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Black holes are the universe’s shadowy figures, with many millions of them roaming unseen in our galaxy alone. These cosmic heavyweights famously destroy anything that wanders too close, tearing stars and other objects to shreds with their immense gravitational pull.  But that may not be the end of the story for those doomed objects. AContinue reading "Could black holes create dark energy? "

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Marco Meniero taken from Poggio Pinzuti, Italy The stars pirouette around Polaris above the hills of Tuscany near Pisa in this two-panel panorama taken with a Nikon Z9 mirrorless camera and a 70mm zoom lens. The imager captured 170 exposures of 15 seconds at f/4.5 and ISO 250.

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In a 1998 research breakthrough, Saul Perlmutter of the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues in the Supernova Cosmology Project found the expansion rate of the universe is accelerating. Perlmutter and his team made the discovery by observing distant type Ia supernovae, whose brightnesses are well known, at different distances. His team made observationsContinue reading "What is dark energy?"

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Inside the bright but unassumingly named nebula Gum 55 lies a dark nebula — a rift of dust grains that absorb visible light — creating a swatch of darkness against the glow of bright gas. Fittingly named for its shape, the Dark Wolf Nebula is no mere puppy — it spans an area some fourContinue reading "ESO captures Dark Wolf Nebula stalking across the Milky Way "

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Star struck Wisconsin Historical Society PressMadison, WI In Chasing the Stars, authors Kelly Tyrell and James Lattis discuss the astronomical achievements of Washburn Observatory at the University of Wisconsin. The book’s 256 pages feature many images and details the early days of stargazing in the region, as well as Washburn’s many modern discoveries in theContinue reading "New astronomy products to be thankful for"

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Lynn Hilborn from Grafton, Ontario The origin of the reflection nebula van den Bergh 9 in Cassiopeia is the Cepheid variable star SU Cas; its blue light is reflected by surrounding dust, which are themselves partially shrouded by thicker dust clouds. This image represents 5 hours of exposure on an 8-inch scope in RGB filters.

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In this episode, Dave Eicher invites you to observe the what happens when our planet, during its journey around the Sun, runs into a stream of particles in its orbit. Such an event is called a meteor shower, and because the streaks of light from these meteors seem to all come from a point in theContinue reading "The Leonid meteor shower: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher"

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What is the universe expanding into? Euan TobinEdinburgh, Scotland This excellent question forces us to confront a region beyond the bounds of our intuition, so please bear with me. When you inflate a balloon, the balloon’s membrane moves outward, closer to the boundaries of whatever room encloses it. You can easily visualize this expansion becauseContinue reading "What is the universe expanding into?"

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Mars is tantalizingly similar to Earth in many ways, but especially in its surface features, which often resemble Earth deserts to an eerie degree. Both Earth and Mars share features such as valleys; canyons; fanlike washes of sand and rock; and long, winding gravel ridges called eskers. All are formed by flowing water, marking theContinue reading "How carbon dioxide glaciers gave Mars liquid water"

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Roughly every 15 years, Earth passes through the plane of Saturn’s rings, causing them to nearly disappear from view — not to mention generating a variety of other interesting phenomena. The next such edge-on appearance will be in March 2025, though Saturn will unfortunately be too close to the Sun (only 9.5° away) for usContinue reading "How to see a Saturn ring mirage"

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The sixth test flight of Starship — the largest and most powerful rocket to ever fly — will launch no earlier than 5 p.m. EST on Monday, November 18, SpaceX said Wednesday. The previous test flight of Starship, which SpaceX also refers to simply as “Ship,” and the Super Heavy booster resulted in the unprecedented catchContinue reading "SpaceX: Starship Flight 6 coming later this month"

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Friday, November 8Although the constellation Perseus is perhaps best known for housing the famous Double Cluster, it’s also home to another open star cluster: M34, one of the Hero’s two Messier objects.  M34 is some 180 million years old and sits 1,400 light-years from Earth. The cluster contains about 100 stars and takes up roughlyContinue reading "The Sky This Week from November 8 to 15: Catch the Leonids early"

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Many constellations are well-known for having one very special deep-sky object within their borders, something so famous that when you read or hear that constellation’s name, you instantly think of it, like an astronomical word association game. Orion? The Orion Nebula! Andromeda? The Andromeda Galaxy, of course! Lyra? Easy — the Ring Nebula. And Perseus?Continue reading "Five ‘shy,’ lesser-known deep-sky gems to observe"

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Astronomy is a science and a hobby that loves long words, acronyms, and abbreviations. At times, listening to someone talking about an event happening in the sky or an object faraway in space can feel like watching one of those episodes of Star Trek where the characters spend 10 minutes just speaking in “technobabble,” soContinue reading "Learn the difference between common astronomical terms"

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Xiaofeng Qu, taken at Xiaochaidan Lake, Qinghai Province, China The Perseid meteors streak across the sky from its radiant in the constellation Perseus appearing in this perspective to be lobbed across the sky. This panorama of 17 stitched 60-second frames was taken with a Nikon DSLR at 14mm lens at f/1.8. Sky frames were capturedContinue reading "A meteoric volley"

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The era of the International Space Station (ISS) is coming to a close. In the near future, NASA plans to bring down the station in a controlled deorbit. The end of the ISS will leave a large gap in human spaceflight, although the Chinese Tiangong space station is currently active. Still, to make a spaceContinue reading "We’re entering the era of private space stations"

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Today, at the World Travel Market in London, STARMUS and The Canary Islands proudly unveiled the line-up for the highly anticipated STARMUS La Palma festival. The announcement was made during a special presentation led by STARMUS co-founder and Director, Prof. Garik Israelian, featuring the President of the Cabildo de La Palma, Sergio Rodríguez. Under theContinue reading "Starmus La Palma: The Island of Stars lineup revealed "

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The second-largest moon in our solar system may have a secret ingredient that explains many of its mysteries — and maybe ups the chances for life there. In research published Sept. 30 in The Planetary Science Journal, a University of Hawaii-led team modeled the potential for methane clathrate (a kind of methane-infused water ice) inContinue reading "Could a methane crust be keeping Titan warm?"

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Despite their destructive forces, black holes are often seen in with a companion, such as a star, neutron star, white dwarf, or even another black hole. However, a study published Oct. 23 in Nature has found that the black hole binary system V404 Cygni, which contains a black hole and a small star, has anContinue reading "This famous black hole system is actually a triple"

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Rainbows don’t actually exist. You can’t find the end of a rainbow (or its attendant pot of gold). It’s not possible to walk across a rainbow as the Norse gods did on the Bifrost, the bridge for fallen warriors to reach Valhalla, or to travel over one like Dorothy to Oz. Rather, rainbows and otherContinue reading "Explore the science of rainbows"

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Stellar Stories Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS now a faint naked-eye object Moving across the constellation Ophiuchus in the evening sky, Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS continues to fade as it moves farther away from Earth and the Sun. The comet now glows at 6th magnitude, keeping it as a faint naked-eye object under a very dark sky. ButContinue reading "Universe, Discovered: Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS still a naked eye object — barely"

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Stellar Stories Hera spacecraft launched The European Space Agency’s Hxera spacecraft launched on October 7, initiating an exciting exploration of an unusual asteroid. The solar system contains many thousands of small asteroid bodies, but the target here — 65803 Didymos, is a binary object spanning some 850 meters (about half a mile). The accompanying imageContinue reading "Universe, Discovered: Hera launches to asteroid crash scene"

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In this episode, Dave Eicher invites you to observe the Moon as it closely passes the Ringed Planet on the evening of November 10. Our natural satellite will be just past its First Quarter phase, while Saturn will glow nicely at magnitude 0.8. If you have a telescope and point it at Saturn, you’ll seeContinue reading "The Moon meets Saturn: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher"

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It has been 52 years since Apollo 17 lifted off from the Taurus-Littrow Valley on the Moon.  All the Apollo landing sites, starting with Tranquility Base on the Moon’s Sea of Tranquility, have been immortalized in print and film and are well known to space aficionados worldwide. But soon, another name will join the exclusiveContinue reading "Here are the nine sites where Artemis 3 might land on the Moon"

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Many astrophotos feature exposures of 12 hours or more. Since nighttime darkness is only about this long, this implies multiple exposures on different nights. How does one set things up to get the exact same location, and avoid parallax error due to Earth’s rotation and orbit? Jose G. RieraSt. Augustine, Florida You are correct, manyContinue reading "How are long-exposure astrophotos made? "

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Overall Photons: Andrea Iorio, Elisa Cuccu, Fernando Linsalata, Javier Caldera, Paul Montague, Carlos Uriarte Castillo, Darius Kopriva, Drew Evans, Bruno Rota Sargi, Blake Behrends, Manuel Alejandro Chavarría Silva, Phillip Hoppes, Jan Beranek, Roberto Volpini, Pier Mattia Basciano, Marco Finatti, Jeff Ratino, Vakhtang Khutsishvili, and Patrice Soom NGC 7293 — better known as the Helix NebulaContinue reading "Eye of the universe"

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By the dawn of the 20th century, not much had changed in the 400 years since Galileo’s discovery of the four jovian moons and his confirmation of Copernicus’ Sun-centered solar system.  Through the early 1900s, astronomers disagreed on whether the universe was home to a multitude of galaxies, so-called “island universes,” or contained entirely withinContinue reading "How Edwin Hubble won the Great Debate"

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Scientists breathed a collective sigh of relief last week when NASA announced that the Chandra X-ray Observatory had been spared the chopping block — at least for another year. It was an abrupt about-face from plans announced in March to decommission the space-based telescope by this December.  Much of the credit for the 11th-hour stayContinue reading "Chandra X-ray telescope, facing chopping block, gets reprieve from NASA"

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The next president of the United States could be the first in that office to accept a phone call from the Moon and hear a woman’s voice on the line. To do so, they’ll first need to make a series of strategic space policy decisions. They’ll also need a little luck. Enormous government investment supports outerContinue reading "Opinion: An international affairs expert breaks down Harris and Trump’s records on space policy"

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Bob Fera/Steve Mandel, taken from Sierra Remote Observatories, California The Sailboat Cluster (NGC 225) is an open star cluster in Cassiopeia; its common name was given to it by Astronomy contributor Rodney Pommier for the visual pattern of its stars. (If you can’t see the sailboat, try tilting your head slightly to the right.) TheContinue reading "Gales of November"

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Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) orbit the Earth hundreds of miles above American soil. But that doesn’t mean they can’t vote while they float. Indeed, Boeing Starliner astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams—who have been in the orbital laboratory since June after their test mission was extended due to safety concerns—said they intend to cast their ballots in theContinue reading "Here’s how ISS astronauts will vote in the 2024 election"

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For thousands of years, humans have worshipped the Sun. Our ancestors built monuments and temples to it, and used it to mark the annual cycle of seasons. For ancient Egyptians, their most important god, Re, was the personification of the Sun itself. Today, we are no less in thrall to the wonders and mysteries ofContinue reading "Bringing the Sun to light"

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November brings many sights to explore, including Mercury in the early evening, Mars brightening, and the giant planets Jupiter and Saturn adding to the spectacle. Jupiter in particular is reaching its best apparition in a decade for Northern Hemisphere observers. Let’s start soon after sunset. Mercury hugs the southwest horizon and remains easily visible throughoutContinue reading "November 2024: What’s in the sky this month? Mars and Jupiter are improving, while Uranus reaches opposition"

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Friday, November 1New Moon occurs this morning at 8:47 A.M. EDT.  The planet Mercury is now becoming visible, low in the evening sky. If you have a clear view southwest, you may catch the planet some 30 minutes after sunset, hanging just 2° above the horizon. Although bright at magnitude –0.3, it may be difficultContinue reading "The Sky This Week from November 1 to 8: Valles Marineris comes into view"

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Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory was felled by the combination of a hurricane, an equipment failure never before seen in the annals of engineering, and an “alarming” lack of concern from engineers and inspectors when crucial support cables were seen slipping out of their sockets years before the main platform of the famed radio telescope cameContinue reading "Arecibo telescope was doomed by hurricane damage and human failures, says report"

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Jeff Schilling from Houston, Texas The star Gamma (γ) Cassiopeia sets aglow the interstellar clouds of IC 63 and IC 59, which appear like a ghost and its tail, respectively. This imager used a 5-inch refractor to take exposures in HαRGB filters of 5.4, 2, 2, and 2 hours, respectively.

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For all of human history, the Sun has served as a great constant in daily life. As this brilliant orb blazes across the sky, it sustaind life, provides harmonious rhythms to our world, and marks the continuous passage of time. It is no wonder that curious minds have always sought to explain both the Sun’sContinue reading "Tales of the Sun: From myth to modern science"

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“Watch out for rambunctious stars. They are trouble,” says Astronomy Editor David Eicher. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) just published a new photograph showing the stunning masterpiece that is R Aquarii, lying about 700 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius the Water-bearer. It is an uncommon type of binary star system displaying chaotic behavior andContinue reading "Watch a zombie star feed on its companion"

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The town of Williams Bay, Wisconsin is much like any other small city on a lake, with an offering of tourist shops and an active beach. But just a short drive past the activity brings you to Yerkes Observatory. Behind an opening of trees stands a sprawling, grand estate with a well-manicured lawn and aContinue reading "How Yerkes Observatory started over"

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Astronomers have discovered a lightweight black hole that’s a bit of a cosmic conundrum. Hypothetically, black hole masses can range all the way from far less than a paperclip to at least tens of billions of times more than the Sun. But observations have revealed a strange scarcity of black holes between about two andContinue reading "Astronomers find a mini black hole"

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Vikas Chander, taken from Observatorio El Sauce, Chile NGC 1291 (also cataloged as NGC 1269) lies 33 million light-years away in Eridanus. At 12 billion years old, the galaxy has lost most of its spiral structure and matured into a transitional state — yet it has an outer ring that still forming stars, appearing blue inContinue reading "Ring of fire"

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The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Boeing is getting out of the space business — or trying to. Part of a wider move to trim and improve business holdings and operations, the company is looking to offload its space program, assuming it can find a suitable buyer. Boeing has been one of NASA’sContinue reading "For sale: One Boeing space program, says report"

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In this episode, Dave Eicher invites you to observe one of the most famous deep-sky objects, the Andromeda Galaxy, also known as Messier 31 (M31). Named for its location in the constellation Andromeda the Princess, M31 lies some 2.5 million light-years from Earth. While sharp-eyed observers can see it without optical aid, binoculars and telescopes giveContinue reading "Observe the Andromeda Galaxy: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher"

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In 1995, a parallel race was on in astronomy — one to find the first planet beyond our own solar system, and the other to find the first brown dwarf, a class of object too heavy to be a planet, but below the mass of a star.  Astronomers ended up publishing the discovery of theContinue reading "Astronomers find out the first known brown dwarf is actually twins"

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On July 26, 2000, the European Space Agency (ESA) launched the Salsa satellite, which joined its three companion satellites — Samba, Rumba, and Tango — on the Cluster II mission, scheduled to last two years. On Sep. 8, after more than 24 years of service, Salsa re-entered Earth’s atmosphere in a controlled de-orbit, where itContinue reading "How the Cluster II mission studied the Sun’s effects on Earth"

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Supernovae, the violent explosions that occur when stars die, normally happen sporadically within galaxies. However, by shifting the angle of the Hubble Space Telescope’s line of sight toward M87, astronomers recently spotted double the expected amount of supernovae along a massive 3,000-light-year-long jet blasting out of the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s center. ResearchersContinue reading "Is this black hole jet making stars explode?"

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Moshen Chan from San Francisco, California The tail of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (C/2023 A3) fans out over the Pacific Ocean and the Point Reyes Lighthouse in California. The photographer used a Sony mirrorless camera and 20mm f/1.8 lens to take sixteen 10-second subframes.

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The bright red supergiant star Betelgeuse has long been a familiar sight for star watchers, winking with a ruddy glow from the shoulder of Orion the Hunter. But it’s also an increasingly popular target for professional astronomers thanks to its scientific peculiarities, ranging from pulsations to mysterious dimming events. Now, astronomers think they may haveContinue reading "Betelgeuse may have a Betelbuddy"

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Friday, October 25Venus passes 3° north of Antares at 3 P.M. EDT. The pair is very low in the southwest, but if you’ve got a clear horizon, both should be visible some 40 minutes after sunset. Venus stands out first, glowing a brilliant magnitude –4. Compare its light to dimmer, magnitude 1.1 Antares, to theContinue reading "The Sky This Week from October 25 to November 1: Callisto slips south of Jupiter"

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Four NASA astronauts are set to splash down Friday morning after spending more than 200 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The four-person crew of NASA’s Crew-8 mission — comprising NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin — will return to Earth around dawn on Friday, splashing downContinue reading "What to watch: NASA Crew-8 astronauts set for early Friday splashdown"

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The X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) isn’t the first of its kind, but the state-of-the-art spectroscopic instruments onboard have opened new doors for high-energy astrophysics.  Active galactic nuclei (AGN) —  supermassive black holes that actively gobble material and shine brightly in the resulting chaos — have always held mysteries for astrophysicists. Now, a yearContinue reading "XRISM’s data debut proves its extraordinary capabilities"

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Lucas Thibaud, taken near Cerro Pachon in Chile The Milky Way serves as a proscenium arch for the zodiacal light and Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) in this panorama taken Oct. 19 from the Chilean Andes. The photographer used a Canon 6Da DSLR and a 20mm f/1.4 lens to take twelve 8-second frames at ISO 1600.

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When SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule Endeavour returns to Earth this week, she will set a clutch of records for the most time spent in space by a crewed spacecraft. Launched for her fifth mission in March, Endeavour has notched 23 cumulative months in orbit, circled Earth 11,000 times and traveled 292 million miles (470 millionContinue reading "Crew-8 has returned from space on record-breaking SpaceX capsule"

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Comet C/2023 A3  — better known as Tsuchinshan-ATLAS — is fading in brightness as it speeds away from the Sun and Earth in the evening sky. It’s still visible to the naked eye in a dark sky, and it’s certainly an easy target for binoculars. But now’s your last chance to see it — soContinue reading "Can you still see Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS?"

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In this episode, Dave Eicher invites you to observe one of the major meteor showers of the year. It’s called the Orionids because all the meteors seem to come from a spot in the constellation Orion the Hunter. The meteor activity will peak in the early morning hours of October 21. If you can’t getContinue reading "The Orionid meteor shower: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher"

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Aldo Rocco Vitale taken from Sicily, Italy This shot of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (C/2023 A3) was taken Oct. 14 from the southern flank of Mount Etna in Piano Vetore at an elevation of 5,700 feet (1750 m). The different hues come from the two tails — one of dust (orange-yellow in this shot) and one ofContinue reading "Blazing star"

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John Vermette, taken from Saguaro National Park near Tucson, Arizona Comet C/2023 A3 is pictured here Oct. 15. The image is a stack of twenty-six 3-second shots with a 50mm f/1.4 lens at ISO 3200.

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Getting started in astrophotography can be daunting. With so many different telescopes, cameras, and mounts and all their variations, where do you start? The first piece of equipment you should choose is a mount, the mechanical base that the telescope attaches to. For astrophotography, the mount must be motorized, and ideally computer-controllable. This might soundContinue reading "Finding your first astroimaging rig"

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Friday, October 18There’s still time to catch Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) in the west after sunset, even as it pulls away from the Sun and Earth on its way back toward the outer reaches of the solar system. Currently hovering between 1st and 2nd magnitude, the comet can be spotted with naked eyes from aContinue reading "The Sky This Week from October 18 to 25: The Orionid meteors peak"

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Comet C/2023 A3, also known as Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, has been in the evening sky for a week now. If you haven’t seen it, that’s understandable because there’s also been a bright Moon in the sky. But the Moon is Full tonight (Oct. 17) and will rise later tomorrow (Oct. 18) and each night thereafter. So, tryContinue reading "See Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS while you still can"

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The Milky Way galaxy has had a violent history. It did not grow though simple and calm accretion, but rather through the aggressive mergers of multiple smaller galaxies. Recently, a team of astronomers found the remnants of perhaps the oldest merger, right in our stellar neighborhood. The Milky Way’s stars have a wide variety ofContinue reading "A baby Milky Way may have swallowed a dwarf galaxy named Loki"

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A pair of papers published today in Nature look at the origins of many meteorites that have fallen to Earth. By examining the detailed makeup of the rocks, ascertaining the time that has passed since they broke off larger bodies, and comparing these to asteroids in space, researchers found evidence that a great majority ofContinue reading "Most meteorites come from just three sources"

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In a teleconference Oct. 15, representatives from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that the Sun has reached the peak level in its current cycle of activity, the 25th for which humans have kept detailed records. The 25th cycle has been far more active than the previous one, especially this year,Continue reading "The Sun has reached solar maximum, NASA and NOAA scientists say"

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Chris Schur, taken from Payson, Arizona Bright comets like Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (C/2023 A3) — captured here with an 6-minute exposure on an 8-inch RASA — sometimes develop an anti-tail. This secondary tail appears to protrude forward from the comet’s nucleus in the opposite direction of the “normal” tail. An anti-tail is a perspective effect created whenContinue reading "Tsuchinshan-ATLAS’ anti-tail"

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BENTONVILLE, Arkansas — The first private spacewalk, an on-orbit symphonic performance, and nearly 40 scientific research experiments. Those were just a few highlights of September’s Polaris Dawn mission: a five-day, four-person orbital spaceflight purchased from SpaceX and commanded by Jared Isaacman, the billionaire CEO of Shift4 Payments. But Isaacman — now a SpaceX “frequent flier”Continue reading "Polaris Dawn crew talks mission highlights, next steps"

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These fleeting beacons from the outer solar system make for fantastic shots.

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The Euclid space observatory launched in July 2023, tasked with creating a 3D map of more than a third of the sky, surveying billions of galaxies up to 10 billion light-years away. Today, scientists revealed the first page in its cosmic atlas, a mosaic comprising 208 gigapixels of data revealing billions of galaxies in awesomeContinue reading "Euclid releases stunning first map of the deep sky"

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Once again, we’ve scoured the astro-marketplace to find the finest, most practical, and most innovative products for Astronomy magazine’s Star Products, 2024 edition. This collection of 35 items, in no particular order, offers a diverse selection. From tools tailored for visual observing to those crafted for astrophotography, there’s something here for everyone, whether you’re aContinue reading "Astronomy’s 14th annual star products"

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SpaceX’s Starship program—responsible for developing the largest and most powerful rocket ever flown—continues to make history. On Sunday, Starship and the Super Heavy booster lifted off around 8:25 a.m. EST from SpaceX’s Starbase launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas, on the rocket’s fifth suborbital test flight. But rather than splash down in the Gulf ofContinue reading "SpaceX achieves historic booster catch during Starship test"

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In this episode, Dave Eicher invites you to observe a close meeting of the Moon and the ringed planet, Saturn. This celestial meet-up will take place on the evening of Oct. 14. You won’t need binoculars or a telescope to view it, although binoculars may give a more pleasing view. Head out an hour afterContinue reading "The Moon meets Saturn: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher"

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Philippe Moussette The aurora dances above the Cap-Rouge trestle bridge in Quebec City the night of Oct. 10/11.

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How much color should I be able to see in sky objects through a 10-inch telescope?  Dennis HoltConcordia, Kansas Unfortunately, when you look at distant galaxies and nebulae, you won’t see much color through your telescope. That’s because you’re viewing objects that are too faint to trigger your eyes’ color receptors. This is the sameContinue reading "Will my telescope show color when viewing deep-sky objects?"

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The third brightest object in the sky after the Sun and Moon, Venus is known for its opalescent splendor at dawn or dusk. Humans have long been drawn to its exquisite beauty and tied it to goddesses of love — from Inanna of Mesopotamian myth to the Greek Aphrodite and Roman Venus. But Venus isContinue reading "30 years ago: Magellan Venus mission successfully concluded"

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Solar cycle 25 continues to deliver, with flares and coronal mass ejections delivering repeated auroral storms visible at latitudes much lower than normal. Last night’s geomagnetic storm reached G4 levels — the strongest since the historic G5 storm of May 10/11. This collection of photos includes the best of reader submissions, social media, and our ownContinue reading "The best images of the Oct. 10 auroral storm"

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NASA’s newest scientific flagship is on its way to the Jupiter system to explore the icy moon Europa, one of the most compelling worlds in our solar system. The mission lifted off Oct. 14 from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:06 p.m. EDT aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.Continue reading "NASA’s Europa Clipper sets sail for Jupiter"

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In the pioneering days of long-exposure astrophotography in the late 19th century, the use of dry plates over wet collodion plates simplified the photographic process. The increased light sensitivity of the emulsion coatings on dry plates allowed for shorter exposure times and produced sharper images of the night sky. In 1881, the French inventors brothersContinue reading "How we found Morehouse’s Black Ring: A dark nebula hiding in plain sight"

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Friday, October 11Jupiter, now located in Taurus the Bull, appears in telescopes wreathed by its four largest moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. At times, those moons pass in front of or behind the planet from our point of view, and tonight you can catch the latter as Europa pops into view after crossing behindContinue reading "The Sky This Week from October 11 to 18: 2024’s third Super Moon rises"

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In this video, Astronomy magazine editor Dave Eicher invites you to observe a comet that’s becoming visible in the evening sky. Starting around October 14, look just to the south of west between 15 and 30 minutes after sunset. The comet will be low, but with each evening that passes, it will be a littleContinue reading "See a comet in the evening: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher"

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After putting on a show in the predawn sky earlier this month, Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (C/2023 A3) was eventually lost in the glare of the Sun. But now that it has crossed behind the Sun from our point of view, it is emerging in the early evening sky and becoming more visible every night as itContinue reading "Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS is rising higher in the evening sky. Here’s where to look"

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On Oct. 8, an X-class solar flare gave rise to a coronal mass ejection (CME) that erupted from the surface of the Sun, racing toward Earth at 1.5 million mph (2.4 million km/h). It arrived at Earth at 11:15 a.m. EDT today, Oct. 10. At 12:57 p.m. EDT, the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC)Continue reading "Earth sees strong aurorae Oct. 10 as solar storm hits ‘severe’ G4 level"

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NASA plans to send humans on a scientific round trip to Mars potentially as early as 2035. The trip will take about six to seven months each way and will cover up to 250 million miles (402 million kilometers) each way. The astronauts may spend as many as 500 days on the planet’s surface beforeContinue reading "NASA wants to send humans to Mars in the 2030s − a crewed mission could unlock some of the Red Planet’s geologic mysteries"

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Acquired by Mark McComsikey at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile; processed by Ron Brecher The Cosmic Bat Nebula is the 43rd object in Beverly Lynds’ landmark catalog of dark nebulae, which she published in 1962 — the greatest catalog of such objects since E.E. Barnard’s in 1919. Lynds died Oct. 5 at the age of 95.Continue reading "The hero we deserve"

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In this episode, Dave Eicher invites you to observe a close meeting of the Moon and the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion, Antares. This celestial meet-up will take place on the evening of October 7. You won’t need binoculars or a telescope to view it, although binoculars may give a more pleasingContinue reading "The Moon meets Antares: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher"

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Although the day started out with a few clouds and rain, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera mission successfully launched on Monday at 10:52 a.m. EDT from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Although advance forecasts gave only a 15 percent chance of favorable weather, fears of postponement quickly dissipated as each stage of theContinue reading "ESA’s Hera mission is headed to Dimorphos, the asteroid NASA crashed into"

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Many large survey experiments in astronomy are looking to understand what we still don’t know about dark energy. Yet, many are plagued with the same problem: too much data.    A tricky problem The Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) is looking to create one of the largest maps of the universe by creating aContinue reading "Dark Energy Explorers: How you can help unravel one of the universe’s biggest mysteries"

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Affordable fast Newtonian astrographs are game changers for astrophotographers. Most of these instruments have a focal ratio in the vicinity of f/4, allowing them to capture light from deep-sky objects more than six times faster than the f/10 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes that dominate the market. But with that faster speed comes a huge problem: a curvedContinue reading "Why Starizona’s Nexus coma corrector wows"

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UPDATE Oct. 10: The Kennedy Space Center remains closed as NASA begins “the assessment and recovery process” from Hurricane Milton, the agency said in a statement today. The statement continued: “The agency’s Europa Clipper launch team will schedule an official launch date when teams from NASA and SpaceX are able to perform their assessments, andContinue reading "Europa Clipper launch postponed until at least Oct. 13 due to Hurricane Milton"

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Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, also known by its catalog designation C/2023 A3, is now magnitude 2.2 in the morning sky. But if you’re not an early riser, you can soon rejoice — it will become visible in the evening sky starting Oct. 14.  On that date, the comet will be in the far eastern part of theContinue reading "Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS will soon move into the evening sky"

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Behyar Bakhshandeh from Carlsbad, California The Moon and Venus met in the sky this past weekend, as captured here on Oct. 5 with a Canon DSLR and 300mm f/4 lens.

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The holiday season is the best time to deepen your love of the cosmos — or give someone you know a great space-themed gift. But finding the perfect astronomy present is hard. That’s why The Space Store, the online store of Astronomy magazine, curated this list of top-rated astronomy and space-themed gifts for the 2024 Christmas andContinue reading "The Best Space Gifts for Astronomy Lovers and Stargazers | Holiday Gift Guide 2024"

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Do astronomers have any estimates of when Saturn’s rings will disappear? Doug KaupaCouncil Bluffs, Iowa All four of the solar system’s giant planets have ring systems. The rings of Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune are dark, sparse belts or ringlets. Only Saturn’s massive main rings are dense and bright, made of almost pure water-ice particles rangingContinue reading "How long will Saturn’s rings last before they disappear? "

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American astronomer Beverly Turner Lynds died peacefully Oct. 5, 2024 at a hospice in Portland, Oregon, after suffering a stroke in early September. She was 95 years old.  Lynds was born Aug. 19, 1929, in Shreveport, Louisiana, but moved to New Orleans at age three. She attended Centenary College in Shreveport and decided she wanted toContinue reading "Beverly Lynds, creator of landmark catalog of dark nebulae, dies at 95"

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NASA plans to send crewed missions to Mars over the next decade – but the 140 million-mile (225 million-kilometer) journey to the red planet could take several months to years round trip. This relatively long transit time is a result of the use of traditional chemical rocket fuel. An alternative technology to the chemically propelledContinue reading "Nuclear rockets could travel to Mars in half the time − but designing the reactors that would power them isn’t easy"

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UPDATE Oct. 7: The Hera mission lifted off today, Monday, Oct. 7 at 10:52 a.m. EDT. The launch livestream can be viewed below via the European Space Agency’s YouTube stream or on X via SpaceX’s account. Here’s what to know about the Hera mission. In 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) successfully slammed intoContinue reading "Hera launches to survey the wreckage of NASA’s asteroid impact test"

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Jean Cursino, taken from Caçapava, São Paulo, Brazil The long tail of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (C/2023 A3) appears in this 30-second exposure taken at f/2.2 and ISO 250 with a Nikon DSLR and 50mm lens.

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On Sept. 1, 1859, the most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history paid Earth a visit. This colossal solar outburst, which led to telegraph systems catching fire and aurorae lighting up skies down to the tropics, became known as the Carrington Event, in honor of English amateur astronomer Richard Carrington, who determined that a majorContinue reading "Is AI the key to predicting solar storms?"

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Solar flares, powerful bursts of energy from our Sun, can have serious effects here on Earth. Flares and other solar eruptions can affect radio communications, disrupt electric power grids, mess up navigation signals like GPS, and pose risks to spacecraft and any astronauts in them. These effects happen because the ionosphere (Earth’s upper atmosphere, fromContinue reading "Will a new solar flare produce great northern lights?"

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The constellation Sculptor is not an easy star pattern to find, but it’s worth the effort because it contains some gorgeous deep-sky objects. Its name comes from French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, who surveyed the southern sky from 1750 to 1753 at the Cape of Good Hope. He called the pattern “The Sculptor’s Workshop,”Continue reading "Observe the galaxies of Sculptor"

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Friday, October 4Now that autumn is officially upon the Northern Hemisphere, the familiar wintertime constellations are rising earlier each night. One of those constellations is Taurus, now some 30° above the eastern horizon by local midnight.  The brightest star in Taurus is the Bull’s red giant eye, Aldebaran. (Don’t mistake brighter Jupiter, now in easternContinue reading "The Sky This Week from October 4 to 11: Enjoy a First Quarter Moon"

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As lone stars go, there’s nothing quite so distinctive as Barnard’s Star. After the Alpha Centauri system, it is our closest neighbor, a red dwarf one-fifth the size of the Sun and 4,500 degrees Fahrenheit (2,500 degrees Celsius) cooler. Just 6 light-years away, it outpaces all other stars by shifting across the night sky byContinue reading "Discovery of a tiny exoplanet sheds new light on a very old star"

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Your editor is in the midst of a weeklong trip to a very remote place. A few days ago I departed Tucson and traveled to Santiago, Chile, where I met about 20 enthusiastic people who were charged up to see the annular eclipse that occurred today. We spent two days touring the marvels of Santiago,Continue reading "Eclipse success on Easter Island"

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Wael Omar, taken from Giza, Egypt Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (C/2023 A3) and a crescent Moon rise over the three main pyramids at Giza in this composite scene. Each layer consists of twenty-five 0.8-second subframes taken with a Sony astromodified mirrorless camera at ISO 800 and an 85mm lens at f/2.8.

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Each spring, when the winter frost departs, the bulbous bodies and sprawling legs of “spiders” appear across Mars’ southern hemisphere. They’re known as araneiform terrain, and scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, recently recreated the formations in a vacuum on Earth to better understand how they form and what they canContinue reading "Scientists recreate spiderlike formations on Mars in the lab"

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Do you remember the first time you truly discovered the universe? When I was a teenager, many moons ago, I bought my first telescope, a Celestron 8. I remember excitedly unboxing it the day it arrived. Fortunately, I had a clear sky that evening and stayed up all night observing. In the early morning, IContinue reading "Deep-sky objects to target as a novice observer"

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October finds Mercury and Venus in the evening sky. Mercury is shy and takes some effort to see, but brilliant Venus is not hard to find. Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, and Jupiter rise in that order before midnight. Mars becomes a fine bright object in the predawn sky, standing high in the east. And C/2023 A3Continue reading "October 2024: What’s in the sky this month? Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS passes Earth, with Mars improving before dawn"

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Abhijit Patil, taken from Lick Observatory, California Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS appears above the ridgeline of the Diablo Range as seen Sept. 28. The photographer captured the comet with a tracked 10-second exposure at ISO 100 with an astromodified Nikon mirrorless camera and a 200mm zoom lens at f/2.8. The foreground is a separate 25-second exposure.

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Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS has not disappointed — and we have the pictures now to prove it. The comet, formally known as C/2023 A3, was first discovered in January 2023 by Purple Mountain Observatory in China’s Jiangsu Province. (The name Tsuchinshan comes from an older transliteration of Zijinshan, the Chinese word for Purple Mountain.) Since then, itContinue reading "Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS stuns in photos at perihelion"

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In the world of private space companies, Elon Musk’s SpaceX is king. To date, SpaceX has launched close to 400 of their Falcon 9 orbital rockets as well as 10 Falcon Heavy rockets, and their Starship program is making rapid progress.  Still, SpaceX is not without competition. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ own private space company,Continue reading "A look at New Glenn: Blue Origin’s heavy-lift booster rocket"

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In this episode, Dave Eicher invites you to observe the annular eclipse that will occur Oct. 2. Annular eclipses occur when the Sun, the Moon, and Earth line up, in that order. But in this case, the Moon is either too far from Earth (so it appears smaller) or Earth is too close to theContinue reading "An annular solar eclipse: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher"

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If you’ve ever attended a star party, it’s more than likely that the astronomer on site pointed out the  Andromeda Galaxy (M31) — currently around 2.5 million light-years away — and mentioned that it’s expected to collide with the Milky Way Galaxy in about 4.5 billion years. But recently, an international team of astronomers postedContinue reading "The Milky Way and Andromeda may not merge, after all"

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In this episode, Dave Eicher invites you to observe the annular eclipse that will occur October 2. Annular eclipses occur when the Sun, the Moon, and Earth line up, in that order. But in this case, the Moon is either too far from Earth (so it appears smaller) or Earth is too close to theContinue reading "An annular eclipse"

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You may not know it, but we’re on the cusp of another solar eclipse. Next Wednesday, October 2, an annular eclipse will take place.  Of course, 71 percent of our planet’s surface consists of oceans, and this eclipse will be one that barely touches land. It will be visible entirely from the Pacific Ocean withContinue reading "Get set for an eclipse on Easter Island"

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Most CubeSats weigh less than a bowling ball, and some are small enough to hold in your hand. But the impact these instruments are having on space exploration is gigantic. CubeSats – miniature, agile and cheap satellites – are revolutionizing how scientists study the cosmos. A standard-size CubeSat is tiny, about 4 pounds (roughly 2Continue reading "CubeSats, the tiniest of satellites, are changing the way we explore the solar system"

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Earth is about to receive a visitor from outer space. No little green men, alas, but a tiny and temporary moon will grace our skies for two months, beginning this weekend.  Astronomers Carlos de la Fuente Marcos and Raúl de la Fuente Marcos from Ciudad Universitaria in Madrid were the ones to discover the mini-moon,Continue reading "Meet 2024 PT5, Earth’s temporary mini-moon"

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Gerald Rhemann, taken from Farm Tivoli, Namibia Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (C/2023 A3) reaches perihelion — its point of closest approach to the Sun — today, Sept. 27. This shot was taken Sept. 25 with a 12-inch f/3.6 scope and LRGB filters with exposure times of 145, 20, 20, and 20 seconds, respectively.

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Friday, September 27Are you looking for a real observing challenge? Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) is shaping up to be the best comet of the year, but it’s still low in the early-morning sky for Northern Hemisphere observers, making it tough to see despite recently hitting mid-3rd magnitude.  Today the comet reaches perihelion, the closest pointContinue reading "The Sky This Week from September 27 to October 4: South America sees an annular eclipse"

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Dwarf planet Ceres is one of the most enigmatic worlds in our solar system — one whose secrets scientists have only been uncovering in the last decade. When NASA’s Dawn mission arrived in 2015, it uncovered an active, salt-rich world that might have — or once have had —  an ocean. Now, new research providesContinue reading "Short-lived organics on Ceres hint at a past ocean — and conditions ripe for life"

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The cosmos may not be broken after all. Soon after the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) started its science mission in 2022, astronomers discovered a half-dozen galaxies near the edge of the universe that appeared far more massive than anyone expected (see “Too big, too soon” in the September 2023 Astronomy). Prevailing theory held thatContinue reading "Early galaxies may be smaller than initially thought"

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Gianni Tumino, taken from Ragusa, Sicily, Italy As comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-Atlas) approaches perihelion, it is starting to become visible in the Northern Hemisphere before dawn. This photographer captured it at 6:04 a.m. in Sicily with a Canon R mirrorless camera, a zoom lens at 200mm and f/5.6, and a 1.8-second exposure at ISO 1600.

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Comet C/2023 A3, also known as Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, may become the next brilliant comet. The brightnesses of such objects, however, are notoriously difficult to predict. But if it continues brightening the way it has during the past month, we should get a nice show. The comet’s name comes from the two observatories that discovered it:Continue reading "Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS: The comet of the year is here"

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Are you interested in making astronomical discoveries and contributing to the search for black holes? If your answer is “Absolutely,” then BlackHoleFinder is the perfect app for you.  BlackHoleFinder, available for Android and Apple devices, was launched by the Dutch Black Hole Consortium in a bid for the public to assist astronomers in finding astronomicalContinue reading "BlackHoleFinder invites you to discover new black holes"

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Michael P. Caligiuri from Carlsbad, California CTB 1 (Abell 85) is a faint supernova remnant in Cassiopeia roughly 9,800 light-years distant. Originally classified by George Abell as a planetary nebula, it’s over half a degree wide — larger in apparent size than a Full Moon. This Hα/OIII/RGB image was taken with a 4.2-inch refractor atContinue reading "Reclassified information"

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Deflecting killer asteroids with nuclear weapons has long been the stuff of science fiction. But thanks to an experiment at Sandia National Laboratories, that scenario has taken a step closer to reality. Led by physicist Nathan Moore, researchers at Sandia in Albuquerque, New Mexico, used a powerful X-ray beam to blast tiny chips of quartzContinue reading "Nuclear bombs really could deflect asteroids, lab tests suggest"

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In this episode, Dave Eicher describes the upcoming conjunction of two bright objects in the evening sky. On October 5th, you’ll see a great pairing of the crescent Moon and Venus very close together in the west. Make sure to get out there right after sunset and look from a location with a clear westernContinue reading "The Moon meets Venus: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher"

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“The great hum” in the October 2023 issue states that astronomers weren’t sure that supermassive black holes in binary systems could close in on each other. I would assume that objects with such massive gravity would absolutely attract each other over time and eventually merge. What am I missing? Bill ZieglerWest Chicago, Illinois All massiveContinue reading "Why weren’t astronomers sure that supermassive black holes could merge?"

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Because the Moon is closer to Earth than the planets and stars, it sometimes passes in front of, or occults, more distant objects from our point of view. The early morning of September 22 brings one such event: Around 5 A.M. EDT (2 A.M. PDT), you’ll find a nearly Last Quarter Moon nestled next toContinue reading "Watch the Moon cover the Pleiades Sunday morning"

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Drew Evans, imaged from Flagstaff, Arizona; additional processing by Utkarsh Mishra Another faint OIII nebula has been discovered by amateur astronomers — this time, a likely planetary nebula, appearing here as the small red doughnut in the middle of this image. The object is designated HorFulEvReb 1 after its discoverers: Drew Evans, Jeffrey Horne, BrianContinue reading "A new planetary"

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Friday, September 20Neptune reaches opposition today at 8 P.M. EDT in the constellation Pisces. Opposition is generally the best time to view planets, as they are highest around local midnight. At that time, Neptune stands just over 45° high in the south. (When surveying the region, make sure not to mistake brighter, magnitude 0.6 SaturnContinue reading "The Sky This Week from September 20 to 27: Neptune at Opposition"

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Our Earth is about 4.5 billion years old and, through careful work, scientists have pieced together a timeline of its past. But much of its earliest history remains a mystery. Scant geological evidence remains of the first 500 million years, an elusive era when our planet was a ball of molten rock routinely bombarded withContinue reading "Traces of Earth’s earliest atmosphere could be buried on the Moon"

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When we think of color in the night sky, we often think of beautiful images of galaxies and nebulae. Unfortunately, most of the time, their faint, diffuse light shows no color to our human eyes. Stars, on the other hand, have more concentrated light, and there we can see color — even with the nakedContinue reading "What gives stars their colors?"

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Dave Campbell from San Antonio, Texas The partial lunar eclipse of Sept. 17 (which happened to occur during a Super Moon) is captured in this image taken with an 8-inch Celestron RASA scope with a 0.7x reducer and a cooled monochrome camera.

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Like a dragon breathing gouts of fire, a black hole in the distant universe is spewing plumes of energy into the cosmos, forming jets that span 23 million light-years. That’s 140 times the width of the Milky Way, enough to influence the evolution of the universe at scales previously unheard of.  An international team ofContinue reading "Black hole caught blasting jets out into the cosmic void"

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Turbulence abounds in nature, from the spinning whorls of hurricanes to the brilliant swirls of Jupiter’s immense storms. Astronomers have even observed it where stars are born in the vast maelstrom of molecular clouds. But much as scientists have tried, no single theory has ever captured the full scale and unpredictability of turbulence. Nobel laureateContinue reading "’Starry Night’ captures the turbulent physics of why stars twinkle"

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One of the most enduring mysteries in astronomy may have just been solved — and sorry folks, it’s not aliens.  In a paper posted last month to the arXiv preprint server, a team of astronomers report they may have finally found the source of the Wow! Signal. Overnight on August 15, 1977, the Big EarContinue reading "The “Wow! Signal,” not surprisingly, was a dud"

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Lionel Guyonnet from Lyon, France Every 13 to 15 years, Earth passes through the plane of Saturn’s rings, causing them to nearly disappear. This sequence of images taken over the last decade shows how the tilt of Saturn’s rings to us has narrowed The next ring-plane crossing occurs in March 2025, although Saturn will beContinue reading "Getting closer…"

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This week, we’re focused on the Moon as Tuesday brings us three amazing events.  The September Full Moon occurs Tuesday evening, bringing us the year’s Harvest Moon and the second of four stunning Super Moons of 2024.  At the same time, visible across much of the world (including the entire contiguous U.S.), the Full MoonContinue reading "How to watch a partial lunar eclipse during Tuesday’s Super Moon"

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Astronomers have long investigated the effects of totality on the animal kingdom. Results vary from eclipse to eclipse and location to location, leaving one to wonder just what specific aspects of the event can trigger behavioral responses. It’s part of what makes totality one of the greatest natural wonders. Before diving into the events ofContinue reading "Studying nature’s eclipse reactions"

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While watching a total lunar eclipse, I can still faintly discern the Moon’s disk, even during the umbral portion. How is this possible, given that no significant source of light reflects from the Moon at that time? Justin FarrDallas, Texas The most noticeable feature of any total lunar eclipse is its color, which is dueContinue reading "Why can we still see the Moon’s disk during a total lunar eclipse?"

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David Joyce from Lexington, Kentucky The Flying Dragon Nebula (Sharpless 2–114) in Cygnus is a faint emission nebula that glows almost entirely in Hα, with little emission in OIII or SII. This image includes 18.5 hours of Hα data with a 2.8-inch f/6 scope.

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Come 2034, humans could witness the first-ever artificial meteor shower sparked by activity in space. That’s according to a new simulation led by Eloy Peña-Asensio of Italy’s Polytechnic University of Milan, who modeled the trajectories of 3 million particles of rocky debris blasted into space after NASA’s DART spacecraft intentionally slammed into the diminutive asteroidContinue reading "Could we experience the first-ever human-made meteor shower?"

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Friday, September 13This Friday the 13th, let’s get ready for the upcoming spooky season by hunting a ghost — specifically, Mirach’s Ghost.  Mirach is cataloged as Beta (β) Andromedae, whose magnitude 2.1 glow matches that of the Maiden’s alpha star, Alpheratz. It is located in the southern portion of the constellation, near its border withContinue reading "The Sky This Week from September 13 to 20: A partial lunar eclipse plus an occultation"

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The four-person crew of SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission made history on Thursday morning by completing the first spacewalk with private astronauts. Commander Jared Isaacman, the billionaire CEO of Shift4 Payments who purchased the five-day orbital flight from SpaceX, and mission specialist Sarah Gillis, one of the crew’s two SpaceX engineers, who are the company’s first employees toContinue reading "SpaceX Polaris Dawn crew completes historic private spacewalk"

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When Don Pettit boarded the International Space Station (ISS) on Sept. 11, it was for him a homecoming. The 69-year-old chemical engineer already boasts a year-plus in space on three ISS missions between 2002 and 2012. But Pettit expected to have an important first port of call after he entered his Earth-circling habitat, office, andContinue reading "Don Pettit, NASA’s oldest active astronaut, begins mission aboard ISS"

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The overall winner of Royal Observatory Greenwich’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year 16 is Ryan Imperio for his photograph, Distorted Shadows of the Moon’s Surface Created by an Annular Eclipse, that captures the progression of Baily’s beads during the 2023 annular eclipse. The image will be on display alongside the winners of the other categoriesContinue reading "Annular eclipse shot wins astronomy image of the year"

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Ron Brecher, taken from Guelph, Ontario, Canada The emission nebula IC 1396 in Monoceros features a prominent pillar of dust known as the Elephant Trunk Nebula, many light-years long. This image represents more than 32 hours of exposure with a 14-inch f/11 scope in SHO filters, plus nearly 7 hours in RGB. The narrowband dataContinue reading "The Elephant’s Trunk"

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The stars in the sky are so distant that they typically appear as pinpricks even to our most powerful telescopes. Aside from the Sun, only a few nearby, bloated stars appear large enough to capture any features on their surface, however crude. New images released Sept. 11, however, capture one of the most detailed imagesContinue reading "ALMA reveals a star’s surface in unprecedented detail"

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Boeing’s crew transport space capsule, the Starliner, returned to Earth without its two-person crew right after midnight Eastern time on Sept. 7, 2024. Its remotely piloted return marked the end of a fraught test flight to the International Space Station which left two astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams, on the station for months longer than intendedContinue reading "Opinion: A former astronaut details what Starliner’s uncrewed return means for NASA, Boeing, and the astronauts still up in space"

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We all gaze in awe at beautiful deep-sky images, marveling at how the best imagers make it look so effortless to produce perfectly framed masterpieces. Such photos always seem to have perfect, pinpoint-round stars forming the foreground for the subject: the gauzy glow of a faint nebula or galaxy. What we don’t see are theContinue reading "How to use an autoguider for the best astrophotos"

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paceX this week received disappointing news from the FAA that the launch license for its fifth test flight of Starship—the largest and most powerful rocket ever built—won’t be awarded until late November. And it’s not happy. On Tuesday, as the company occasionally does when facing what it deems to be unfair treatment, SpaceX posted a lengthy update decrying theContinue reading "SpaceX takes aim at FAA after latest Starship launch delay"

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It’s no question that we have begun polluting the space around Earth. While governments around the world have participated in cataloging and tracking the largest orbiting hazards, astronomers have recently pointed out that the greatest threat to future missions comes from the smallest bits of debris — bits that currently go untracked.  In a paperContinue reading "Small, untrackable pieces of space junk are cluttering low Earth orbit"

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A report published Tuesday raises serious questions about NASA’s ability to effectively function as the nation’s preeminent space agency. The 218-page document, assembled by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) at the behest of Congress, warns that NASA is prioritizing short-term missions and commercial contracts over the people and technology that makeContinue reading "Shortsighted, aging NASA faces uncertain future, says report to Congress"

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Space is an unnatural environment for humans. We can’t survive unprotected in a pure vacuum for more than two minutes. Getting to space involves being strapped to a barely contained chemical explosion. Since 1961, fewer than 700 people have been into space. Private space companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin hope to boost that number to many thousands, and SpaceX is already taking bookings forContinue reading "Upcoming Polaris Dawn spacewalk will push the envelope"

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The Owl Cluster, also known as NGC 457, is an open cluster in the constellation Cassiopeia. You can’t see it without optical aid, so use binoculars or a telescope. Astrophotographers can easily capture this celestial object with short exposures.

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Processing by Warren Keller, taken by the James Webb Space Telescope The famous Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula (M16) look like ghostly wraiths in this near-infrared view taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. To make this version, Keller downloaded JWST’s raw data from its public archives and processed it on his own.Continue reading "JWST and Me"

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Rockets get all the glory and all the glamour. It’s just a fact. They’re tall, gleaming objects. They lift off from Earth standing atop columns of flame and generate thundering noise while they carry people and machines to the most distant reaches of outer space. It’s no wonder we love them. Launch pads, however, areContinue reading "Why the SpaceX Starship launch pad matters"

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UPDATE 9/10/2024: The Polaris Dawn mission successfully launched to low-Earth orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Sept. 10 at 5:23 a.m. EDT. The crew’s first opportunity for their historic spacewalk is on Thursday, Sept. 12 at 2:23 a.m. EDT. SpaceX’s livestream will begin roughly one hour before, and can be viewed at theContinue reading "Polaris Dawn launched Tuesday morning: How to watch the mission’s spacewalk"

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Boeing’s Starliner safely departed the International Space Station on the night of Friday, Sept. 6 — albeit without its crew — and made a soft landing at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico at 12:01 a.m. EDT the following morning. The reentry and landing concluded a test flight to the International Space Station thatContinue reading "Boeing’s Starliner returns to Earth safely — without its crew"

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How can a black hole pull light into itself if a photon is massless? Dennis MurphyFort Bragg, California Photons are indeed massless, but they still travel through our universe. You can picture the fabric of the cosmos as a sort of grid — one that is four-dimensional and incorporates not only the three dimensions ofContinue reading "How can a black hole pull light into itself if a photon is massless?"

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In this remarkable age, space is becoming ever more accessible to the general public, and citizen scientists are enriching the field of professional astronomy with their contributions. NASA’s latest flagship spaceborne observatory, the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is no exception: Following the tradition set by the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA releases dataContinue reading "How to process JWST images like a pro"

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I’ve been a rabid astronomy enthusiast for 48 years, and rarely have I been as juiced up for an observational event as I am for the eclipse coming in three years. On August 2, 2027, a total solar eclipse will make its mark from the eastern Atlantic Ocean across the Strait of Gibraltar, between SpainContinue reading "The greatest eclipse for the rest of our lives"

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Anthony Grillo from Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania The familiar figure of the Triangulum Galaxy (M33) looks a bit different but is still recognizable in this portrait taken entirely with an Hα filter and ten hours of exposure on a 14-inch scope. Isolating the Hα data reveals the pockets of heated hydrogen gas dotting its spiral arms,Continue reading "A different light"

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NASA has announced its mission timeline for the uncrewed Boeing Starliner spacecraft to depart from the International Space Station and return autonomously to Earth on Friday.

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Friday, September 6The Moon passes 0.5° north of Spica at 1 P.M. EDT, occulting (passing in front of the planet) for some observers in parts of Africa, Canada, and the U.S. To check whether you’re in the path and the timing of the event from various cities, visit the International Occultation Timing Association’s webpage. TheContinue reading "The Sky This Week from September 6 to 13: Saturn at opposition"

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Excessive artificial light at night (ALAN) doesn’t just pollute the sky. It may also pollute the brain. That’s according to a surprising new study focused on light pollution and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). According to the Alzheimer’s Association, “Alzheimer’s is the most common cause of dementia, a general term for memory loss and other cognitive abilitiesContinue reading "Light pollution linked to higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease"

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Chinese researchers have reported evidence that the Moon was volcanically active just 125 million years ago — a geologic blink of an eye — a finding that has the potential to rewrite lunar history. The results come from an analysis of lunar samples returned over three years ago by the Chang’e 5 mission, and upendContinue reading "Volcanoes were erupting on the Moon while dinosaurs roamed Earth, Chang’e 5 samples suggest"

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As black as space may seem, even the darkest corner of the universe gets light. Measuring that tiny glimmer — called the cosmic optical background (COB) — sheds light on the energy balance of the entire universe, one of cosmology’s holy grails. With recent data gathered by the New Horizons spacecraft, now 57 times fartherContinue reading "New Horizons measures how dark the universe can get"

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Take some time to point binoculars or a telescope at open cluster NGC 457, which lies in the constellation Cassiopeia. You’ll first notice a pair of bright stars that give this deep-sky object the appearance of a common bird. Indeed, Astronomy magazine Editor Dave Eicher christened it the Owl Cluster more than 40 years ago.Continue reading "Observe a great star cluster: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher"

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This was the big one. Nearly seven years after totality crisscrossed the U.S. in August 2017, the Moon once again slipped in front of the Sun in the skies above North America on April 8, 2024. Making landfall in Mexico, the Moon’s shadow swept across the continent, through the heart of the U.S. into NewContinue reading "A look back: The Great North American Eclipse delivers"

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The designation M stands for Messier objects. I understand the history behind how these were identified and cataloged. But what are NGC objects? Where did NGC come from and how is it applied? Dean TreadwayJesup, Georgia Anyone who has developed an interest in stargazing has certainly heard of the Messier and NGC catalogs. These publicationsContinue reading "What are NGC objects, and where did this catalog come from?"

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To boldly go Running Press (Hachette Book Group)Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Peeing and Pooping in Space by Kiona N. Smith is not just space-themed bathroom humor, but a history of the engineering feats it took to address how astronauts go in space. This 112-page illustrated book for all ages offers insight into little-known inventions to aid explorersContinue reading "Fall into new astronomy products this month"

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The famed Andromeda Galaxy, or M31, draws attention at public star parties not only because it is the nearest major member of the Local Group to our Milky Way, but also because most people are aware that it is set to collide with our galaxy. Some people become anxiously curious about what that collision isContinue reading "Get to know the Andromeda Galaxy"

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Venus lingers after sunset. Saturn reaches opposition Sept. 8 and Neptune reaches opposition on the 20th. Jupiter dominates Taurus and Mars improves as it passes into Gemini. Mercury makes its best morning appearance in the Northern Hemisphere and the last week of September could offer a naked-eye comet. Venus is visible in the west forContinue reading "September 2024: What’s in the sky this month? Saturn and Neptune reach opposition, with Mercury at its best"

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Charles Pevsner, taken from Rio Hurtado, Chile Spiral galaxy NGC 1532 lies 50 million light-years away in Eridanus. Its dwarf galaxy companion NGC 1531 has bent one of its arms out of shape as it makes a close pass. This LRGB image comprises 15.5 hours of exposure with a 5-inch refractor.

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When NASA announced Aug. 24 that Boeing Starliner astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams will remain in space another six months, miss Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year holidays with their families, and land in a different spacecraft, it stirred headlines worldwide. But theirs is not the first mission to be unexpectedly lengthened or hitContinue reading "A brief history of astronauts stuck in space"

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On June 8, 2021, researchers used the Keck I telescope on the summit on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea to observe Jupiter’s moon Ganymede in the shadow of the gas giant. During the three-hour eclipse, they were able to capture images of visible aurorae in the moon’s atmosphere using five-minute exposures, showing how they move and swell.Continue reading "Scientists view Ganymede’s aurorae dancing during eclipse"

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Friday, August 30The Great Square of Pegasus is rising in the east as darkness starts to fall after sunset. This large asterism is the most recognizable portion of the Winged Horse. It is bounded by four stars, yet only three of these are in the constellation Pegasus — the fourth is in neighboring Andromeda, justContinue reading "The Sky This Week from August 30 to September 6: See Mercury at its best"

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Since the 1950s, scientists have known that the Sun emits a stream of particles in a vast wind, carrying away an Earth’s worth of mass every 150 years. This wind of protons sweeps by comets and sculpts their tails into million-kilometer wind socks. Near Earth’s orbit, the solar wind fills a sugar cube’s worth of volumeContinue reading "Waves may be heating the solar wind — and two spacecraft caught them in action"

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David Gluchowski from Brooklyn, New York The reflection nebula NGC 6914 in Cygnus lies within a dense field of emission and dark tendrils of dust. “To me these reflections form the eyes of what look like an eldritch monster, formed by the dark nebulae and ridge formations in the emission nebulae,” the imager writes. TheContinue reading "A monster in Cygnus"

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A team of researchers has used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to discover six likely rogue planets. Such objects have masses similar to planets but do not orbit parent stars. The newfound objects, whose masses range from five to 10 times that of Jupiter, are all in NGC 1333, a reflection nebula in theContinue reading "Rogue worlds may give clues as to how stars form"

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A European spacecraft zipped by both Earth and the Moon last week. In the early 2030s, the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) mission will be the first European probe to orbit Jupiter. But first, it had to to carry out a key maneuver to help set up its eventual encounter with the giant planet. JUICEContinue reading "The JUICE mission just pulled off an unprecedented spaceflight maneuver"

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The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) was designed to capture images of some of the most gargantuan structures in the universe — and a new observation just pushed it to its limits. In a study published in The Astrophysical Journal, scientists working on the EHT — a consortium of 11 radio telescopes spread out across nineContinue reading "Event Horizon Telescope captures highest-resolution images ever taken from the ground"

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Jeff Schilling from Kingwood, Texas The Lagoon Nebula (M8) brims with glowing gas, as well as dense dark clouds called Bok globules, where material is collapsing to form stars. The largest such globule in this image seems to be a hand pointing to the Lagoon’s center. The imager took nearly 15 hours of data inContinue reading "Which way to the Lagoon?"

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Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just snap our fingers and make Mars habitable? Admittedly, the challenges in the way of inhabiting the Red Planet are daunting. It’s cold, dry, and airless. It is for all intents and purposes a dead world. But recently, a team of physicists has concocted a scheme that couldContinue reading "New study suggests we could give Mars a thicker atmosphere — using dust"

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When NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams blasted off from Earth June 5 aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on its first crewed flight test to the International Space Station (ISS), they expected to spend about a week in space. However, the two astronauts will now spend some eight months in orbit and return home onContinue reading "NASA announces Boeing Starliner will return to Earth without crew"

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In the hours before sunrise on Tuesday, Aug. 27, you can see a nice grouping of solar system objects. First, find the roughly 40-percent-illuminated Moon. The next brightest object, to the lower right of the Moon, will be Jupiter. Then look to the lower left of Jupiter for Mars. The Red Planet, glowing at magnitudeContinue reading "The Moon, Mars, and Jupiter meet up! This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher"

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UPDATE 8/28/24: After pushing back the initial launch from Tuesday to Wednesday this week to check a helium leak in the launch system, SpaceX once again delayed Polaris Dawn’s launch, citing poor weather forecasts off the coast of Florida on the day of the mission’s splashdown. According to a post on X, the mission team willContinue reading "All about the Polaris Dawn mission launching soon"

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Are we alone in the universe? The question has tugged at humanity ever since we discovered the enormity of the cosmos. In 1950, Enrico Fermi postulated his famous paradox: If life is common enough in the universe to give rise to us, then where is everybody? Recently, a philosopher has advanced a proposal to resolveContinue reading "Why we aren’t alone in the universe — but might as well be"

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Rich Ruffini from Wasilla, Alaska The myriad strands of plasma in the Sun’s chromosphere pulsate with magnetic energy, creating a mesmerizing textural tapestry. This image is a stack of 300 1/200-second frames taken with a 4-inch refractor and Daystar Hα “eyepiece.”

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We see evidence for merging supermassive black holes everywhere we look. One problem: We’re not exactly sure how they manage to do it. Recently, a team of astronomers has proposed that a particular form of dark matter may be the key to unlocking this cosmic mystery.  Supermassive black holes are the largest black holes inContinue reading "How merging black holes could reveal the nature of dark matter"

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There are many glittering celebrity stars in the Hollywood of the heavens, astronomical A-listers whom every skywatcher fawns over. But for every celestial Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, or Tom Cruise, there are hundreds if not thousands of other lesser-known stars. These B-list suns may not have their own fan clubs or groupies but, like all goodContinue reading "Five almost-famous stars worth gazing at"

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Friday, August 23There’s a short dark window this evening to catch one of the most popular galaxies that amateur astronomers love to observe: M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy. Located in the small constellation Canes Venatici, which is slowly sinking toward the northwest horizon after dark, the Whirlpool is a gorgeous face-on spiral with a small, compactContinue reading "The Sky This Week from August 23 to 30: Comet Olbers gets a black eye"

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All space missions come to an end. Some die quietly of old age, running out of fuel or power. Some go in a blaze of glory, plunging into an atmosphere and burning up, sending back data to the last. Others self-destruct, never reaching their intended targets — blowing up on the launch pad, or ending upContinue reading "Astronomers are rallying to save NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory"

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Haim Huli from Kibutz Ramat HaKovesh, Israel NGC 1360 — also known as the Robin’s Egg — lies in Fornax, roughly 1,400 light-years distant. Observations in 2017 showed this planetary nebula has not one but two white dwarfs at its center. Earlier in their lives, these stars shared their outer layers in a common envelope,Continue reading "A successful courtship"

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How is TESS able to spot more planets in the sky than Kepler could? Doug KaupaCouncil Bluffs, Iowa The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has outpaced the now-retired Kepler mission in discovering planets and planet candidates primarily because of the former’s significantly larger survey area. It covers almost the entire sky compared to the smallContinue reading "How is TESS able to spot more planets in the sky than Kepler could?"

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On the first night out with my brand-new Celestron NexStar 8SE back in July 2015, I knew little about the relative sizes of astronomical objects. I was bowled over by my first view of Saturn — an impressive sight through an 8-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope (SCT) — and I was eager to see more. I knewContinue reading "How to choose the right focal length for your astrophotos"

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4.5 billion years ago, amid the chaos of the early solar system, the young Earth was rocked by a cataclysmic collision with another planet the size of Mars. The debris flung into space eventually formed a molten sphere of liquified rock — a world covered in a global ocean of magma that later cooled andContinue reading "India’s lunar rover found remnants of the Moon’s ancient global magma ocean"

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Although it may seem hard to believe, the International Space Station (ISS) is nearing the end of its operational lifespan. Some readers might’ve even been born after the first section of the ISS was launched in 1998 and have never lived in a world without it soaring overhead. The ISS took years to build andContinue reading "Here’s how NASA will deorbit the International Space Station"

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The past decade has seen a rapid expansion of the commercial space industry. Rival nations are competing for prime military and economic positions beyond the Earth. Public and private entities are clamoring to mine the Moon, and a growing halo of space junk is polluting low Earth orbit. In a 2023 white paper, a group of concerned astronomers warned againstContinue reading "Opinion: How we can explore space without repeating colonialism’s mistakes"

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The term “constellation” evokes several denotations. The most familiar is “a grouping of naked-eye stars sometimes connected by imaginary lines or superimposed by illustrations to suggest images, either earthly or mythological.” Strictly speaking, however, a constellation is a distinct portion of our sky with precise borders, not simply a collection of stars near each otherContinue reading "Where did the constellations come from?"

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On Tuesday, August 20, you can catch a great conjunction of the Moon and Saturn. The ringed planet will be separated from a nearly Full Moon by less than half a degree. The objects will fit nicely in binoculars or a low-power telescopic field, and will also provide a great opportunity for astrophotographers. To learnContinue reading "The Moon slides by Saturn: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher"

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After 10 years and nearly 27 million images, NASA said goodbye to the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) mission last week when its transmitter was turned off. The spacecraft began life as a space telescope tasked with uncovering distant galaxies but became so much more by searching for potentially hazardous comets and asteroidsContinue reading "NASA bids farewell to NEOWISE mission"

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Dark matter is a mysterious substance that makes up some 85 percent of the total matter in our universe. Although we cannot see it, we can see its gravitational fingerprints on the way galaxies move and the way massive objects bend light around themselves. And now, researchers may have found a way to turn giantContinue reading "Scientists use Jupiter to search for dark matter"

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Daniel Phillips from Oceanside, California The open cluster NGC 6823 in Vulpecular is ensconced within the emission nebula Sharpless 2–83, bursting with color in this Hubble-palette rendition. Reaching inward toward the cluster are pillarlike tendrils of star-forming cold, dense dust. The imager used an 8-inch f/4.9 scope to take 12 hours of exposure.

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The Ring Nebula (M57) in Lyra is one of the most adored planetary nebulae in the night sky. Yet its bright annulus, which is most observers’ target, can steal attention away from what lies inside it. This includes its central star, which lies at the limit of vision and is a rewarding challenge to spot.Continue reading "Looking inside the Ring Nebula"

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When it comes to appearances, the universe is a tricky place. Visible light occupies merely a sliver of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. To study the cosmos in its entirety, scientists must peer beyond visible light using specialized instruments, including radio telescopes and X-ray telescopes. And the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) senses infrared (IR) radiation,Continue reading "JWST sees light invisible to the eye. These scientists decide how to color it"

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Deep beneath the surface of Mars lies a large reservoir of liquid water, according to seismometer data from NASA’s retired InSight lander. The findings, published Aug. 12 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, hint at sufficient water to fill oceans and globally cover Mars to a depth of over a mile (1 toContinue reading "Mars could have oceans’ worth of liquid water buried in its crust"

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Team ShaRA, taken from Rio Hurtado, Chile The Antennae Galaxies (NGC 4038/9) are one of the most famous examples of interacting galaxies. In 1972, Alar and Jüri Toomre became the first researchers to use computers to simulate galaxy interactions; their success in replicating the dramatic tidal tails of the Antennae helped convince astronomers that galaxiesContinue reading "Telescoping antennae"

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Friday, August 16Saturn is where all the action is at this evening, as the planet’s brightest moon, Titan, slips beneath Saturn’s south pole. The planet rises around 9 P.M. local daylight time and stands more than 20° high within two hours. Glowing at magnitude 0.7, the ringed planet is relatively easy to spot in Aquarius,Continue reading "The Sky This Week from August 16 to 23: It’s a Blue Sturgeon Moon"

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New results from the first archaeological fieldwork conducted in space show the International Space Station is a rich cultural landscape where crew create their own “gravity” to replace Earth’s, and adapt module spaces to suit their needs. Archaeology is usually thought of as the study of the distant past, but it’s ideally suited for revealingContinue reading "Archaeologists conduct first ‘space excavation’ on International Space Station"

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We have smartphones, smart cars, smart appliances, and even smart lightbulbs. What about smart telescopes? You could say that smart scopes have been around since the first go-to models were introduced decades ago. But over the past few years, a new breed of even-smarter telescopes has become increasingly popular. These next-generation smarties are not forContinue reading "DwarfLab’s new tiny smart scope packs a punch"

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Abhijit Patil, taken from Yosemite National Park, California The iconic Half Dome is backlit by the glow of the aurora on the horizon the night of Aug. 11/12, as Perseid meteors streak overhead. The imager used separate Nikon mirrorless and DSLR cameras, one to image the foreground and sky and another to capture the streaksContinue reading "Half Dome aglow"

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Elon Musk officially endorsed Donald Trump for president of the United States on July 13, 2024, shortly after Trump survived an assassination attempt. Musk, a billionaire technology entrepreneur, has made groundbreaking contributions in multiple industries, particularly space travel and exploration. Even before Musk’s endorsement, Trump was reportedly considering giving the billionaire an advisory role ifContinue reading "Opinion: SpaceX’s Elon Musk endorsed Donald Trump for president – what this could mean for U.S. space policy"

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Just south of Mercury’s equator lies a crater honoring Czech composer Leoš Janáček. Battered and time-worn, it sits amid countless others dotting the barren, broiling terrain of the solar system’s innermost planet. Nearby is a truck-trailer-sized depression gouged by a visitor from Earth launched 20 years ago this month: NASA’s MESSENGER. Only the second spacecraftContinue reading "How the MESSENGER mission transformed our understanding of Mercury"

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The peak of the Perseid meteor shower has been grabbing headlines this week, but there’s another upcoming event visible tomorrow morning you won’t want to miss: the close conjunction of Mars and Jupiter. In the pre-dawn sky of August 14, the two planets will blaze brightly in the constellation Taurus and stand just 0.3° apart,Continue reading "How to see tomorrow’s conjunction of Mars and Jupiter"

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How do scientists know what spectral lines belong to which compound? Zbigniew KomalaChrzanow, Poland Each atom and molecule has its own fingerprint that, like yours, is unique. But unlike yours, this fingerprint is made of light. Elements and compounds emit identifying sets of “colors,” or wavelengths, of light. (“Colors” is in quotes here because theContinue reading "How does spectroscopy work?"

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Allen Hwang from Deming, New Mexico While out looking for Perseid meteors around 12:30 a.m. the morning of Aug. 12 in New Mexico, this photographer could see “a faint pink glow … on the northern horizon” — an auroral display from G4-level geomagnetic storms that peaked this weekend. This 20-second exposure was taken with aContinue reading "Double feature"

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The outer solar system is awash with liquid water. A briny ocean is concealed beneath the icy crust of Jupiter’s fourth largest moon, Europa — with more water than all of Earth’s oceans combined. A subsurface sea on Saturn’s moon Enceladus spews plumes of water vapor into space. And there are tantalizing hints that oceansContinue reading "Saturn’s moon Mimas may hide a surprisingly young ocean"

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The best meteor shower of the year is here — the Perseids, peaking Aug. 12 and 13. All you need to do is go out under a clear sky, get away from city lights if possible, and look straight up. This year, the Moon will set around 10 p.m. local time, darkening the skies andContinue reading "Catch the Perseid meteor shower! This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher"

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If someone asks you, “How bright is that star?” and your answer is “Pretty bright,” that isn’t very useful. And, of course, it’s worthless for any type of comparative research. So for centuries, astronomers have used and refined a method of determining the brightness of stars and every other celestial object called the magnitude system.Continue reading "Why do astronomers measure stars in magnitudes?"

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One of the world’s pioneering and most talented space artists, Adolf Schaller, died in early August at age 68. He leaves a published body of work that establishes him as one of the greatest space artists. His attention to ongoing discoveries, from the solar system to distant galaxies, resulted in portrayals reflecting both what isContinue reading "Legendary space artist Adolf Schaller dies at 68"

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Over the past eight years, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia space observatory has transformed our understanding of the history of our Milky Way Galaxy. From Gaia’s perch at Earth’s L2 Lagrange point, roughly 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) distant, it has produced the most comprehensive three-dimensional survey of the Milky Way ever made:Continue reading "Survivors from the Milky Way’s birth"

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Friday, August 9Still about 50° high in the west some two hours after the Sun has set, our target for tonight is NGC 5962, a so-called “flocculent” spiral in the constellation Serpens Caput. It’s located about 2.6° northwest of magnitude 3.7 Beta (β) Serpentis, one of the three stars in a triangular formation that makeContinue reading "The Sky This Week from August 9 to 16: A conjunction of Mars and Jupiter"

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Panagiotis Andreou Orion the Hunter rises above Aoraki, also known as Mount Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand. The photographer used a Nikon DSLR and 40mm f/1.4 lens at ISO 1600 to take 12 minutes of sky exposures, plus one 90-second frame for the mountain.

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With high rates of meteors and balmy summer temperatures, the Perseid meteor shower is one of the most celebrated of the year. Second in peak rate only to the December Geminids, the Perseid meteor shower this year takes center stage, thanks to the timing of the phases of the Moon. This year, the Perseid meteorContinue reading "How to watch the Perseids, 2024’s best meteor shower"

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When amateur astronomers participate in star parties for the general public, the subject of distances in space always comes up. The immensity of our universe never fails to fascinate curious minds. But when it comes to truly grasping it — let alone explaining it — words and numbers often fall short. It might be good,Continue reading "How to grasp the scale of the cosmos from your backyard"

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As Earth circles the Sun, our planet regularly passes through dust and debris left in our path by passing comets and asteroids. Each time this happens, Earth experiences a meteor shower that fills the sky with bright streaks of light. These “falling stars” are the result of cosmic clouds of detritus burning up in our atmosphere. ButContinue reading "Do meteor showers create meteorites?"

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UPDATE 8/14/24: During a media call this afternoon, NASA officials announced that as of yet there are no major updates on the timing of Wilmore and Williams’ return, or the vehicle that may bring them back to Earth. However, they confirmed that the agency’s primary concern remains the Starliner’s propulsion system — namely the craft’sContinue reading "No return date yet for Starliner astronauts on ISS"

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When using my astronomy software or looking at various books, I notice that not everyone draws the constellations the same way. Why? John HinkampAndros Island, Bahamas Imagining familiar images in the sky has always been an easy way to track the annual progress of the stars. Around the second century C.E., the Greek astronomer ClaudiusContinue reading "Why aren’t the constellations always drawn the same way?"

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On July 24, 2024, a team at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile installed its 3.4-meter secondary mirror onto the Simonyi Survey Telescope. Its installment brings the facility one step closer to imaging the southern sky with the largest digital camera in the world. The secondary mirror (M2) is the first permanent piece ofContinue reading "The Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s secondary mirror is now in place"

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Io, one of Jupiter’s Galilean satellites, is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. Images from spacecraft have shown molten lava erupting along walls that dam giant lava lakes and towering plumes of gas and dust rising from broad calderas. Now, a team led by planetary scientist Ashley Davies at NASA’s Jet PropulsionContinue reading "First-of-its-kind map of Io’s volcanoes hints at subsurface magma ocean"

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Andrea Arbizzi, taken from Modena, Italy WR 134 in Cygnus is one of the first known Wolf-Rayet stars, a class of rare stars named for their discoverers, French astronomers Charles Wolf and Georges Rayet. WR stars originally stood out due to their broad emission bands. Later, researchers found they were the result of intense stellarContinue reading "The mark of a Wolf"

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David L. Crawford, an astronomer and one of the pioneers of the modern dark-sky movement, died peacefully July 22 in Carlsbad, California. During a decadeslong tenure at Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) in Tucson, Arizona, he was renowned for his work in stellar photometry and led the construction of two of the most productive 4-meterContinue reading "How legendary dark-sky advocate David Crawford sparked the fight against light pollution"

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Aberration-free Vixen Co.Saitama, Japan The VSD90SS 3.5-inch f/5.5 astrograph offers fast and aberration-free imaging across the entire field of view on a full-frame or medium-format (44mm by 33mm) camera. The optical tube assembly has a focal length of 495mm and a five-element design, with two super-low dispersion lenses and one extra-low dispersion lens. $4,999.97service@explorescientific.comhttps://global.vixen.co.jp SmoothContinue reading "Find cool products this hot month"

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Emily Calandrelli, an MIT engineer, science communicator, host, and Emmy-nominated TV producer, is heading to space. On July 16, Calandrelli took to social media to announce that she will be launching aboard a Blue Origin craft, a feat that will make her one of the first 100 women in space. Calandrelli’s announcement garnered lots ofContinue reading "Emily Calandrelli: Science TV host is reaching for the stars"

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M13, better known as the Hercules Cluster, is one of the night sky’s great globular clusters. Globulars get their name for their distinct, globe-like appearance — a ball of stars that increases in density and brightness as you look closer to the core. Unlike open clusters, which are collections of stars that form from theContinue reading "Explore the Hercules Cluster: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher"

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Unlike Earth’s life-sustaining blanket of air, the Moon has but a thin wisp of an atmosphere. Now, a new study using samples retrieved by the Apollo missions more than 50 years ago is helping researchers gain clues into both how our satellite’s thin atmosphere formed and how it has evolved over billions of years. “TheContinue reading "Meteorite strikes create the Moon’s atmosphere"

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In Hubble pictures taken just months apart of V838 Monocerotis, the dust ring around this star grows by several light-years during that time, called a “light echo.” How can something grow by 5 light-years in five months? Ronald VanAttaAnn Arbor, Michigan Congratulations on noticing an effect called superluminal expansion, a phenomenon we see in aContinue reading "What is a light echo?"

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On June 15, I traveled to the Balkan country of Kosovo to install a 14-inch telescope donated by Celestron to that young country’s new national observatory and planetarium. The installation of this telescope was a historic occasion, marking the completion of Kosovo’s first national observatory. The facility has enormous potential to cultivate and harness theContinue reading "In Kosovo, a new public observatory opens eyes — and hearts"

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