Spring has sprung — and for lovers of deep-sky objects, that means it’s galaxy season. This is a time of the year when that pesky, band of glowing stars and shadowy dust that we call the Milky Way is mostly out of view in the evening sky, allowing us to look out of the diskContinue reading "Explore the Virgo galaxy cluster: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher" The post Explore the Virgo...

Chris Schur, taken from Payson, Arizona Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks is nearing its April 21 perihelion and continues to put on a show. This 14-minute exposure with an 8-inch f/2 RASA scope reveals a yellow parabolic coma and a billowing ion tail. A pronounced kink in the ion tail marks the site of a disconnection event, whereContinue reading "The tail of the ‘devil’" The post The tail of the...

A series of ring structures on the surface of Europa may give hints to the thick ice shell below — and could affect the potential for life on one of the most promising places to find it in our solar system. In a paper recently published in Science Advances, a team of planetary scientists analyzedContinue reading "Circular patterns on Europa suggest how deep a lively ocean may be" The post...

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft, headed to Jupiter’s ice-covered moon Europa in October 2024, will carry a laser-etched message that celebrates humanity’s connection to water. The message pays homage to past NASA missions that carried similar messages. As the president of Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or METI, International, I helped...

Just a few years ago, in a galaxy 848 million light-years away, astronomers witnessed something strange happen. The supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the center of this galaxy was chugging along just fine, steadily gobbling up matter that fell into it. But in December 2020, the galaxy suddenly flared up as it feasted on aContinue reading "A galaxy’s bright flicker turned out to be two black...

There are many glittering Celebrity Stars in the Hollywood of the heavens, astronomical A Listers who everyone looks up at on every clear night and fawns over.  But for every celestial Taylor Swift, Beyonce, or Tom Cruise, there are hundreds if not thousands of other lesser-known stars. We’ve picked five of these stars to pullContinue reading "5 lesser-known stars that are worth the time...

Flickr/ Kevin Gill Q: What are the accepted proofs that Earth revolves around the Sun? When did this realization take place? Bob James Las Vegas A: We had no direct view of Earth until the dawn of the Space Age. Finding physical evidence that our planet revolves around the Sun took some clever thinking to proveContinue reading "When did we realize that the Earth orbits the Sun?" The post When did...

Friday, April 12 The stars famous for appearing in the wintertime sky are now setting soon after sunset these days, as spring gets well and truly underway. Look west about an hour after sunset tonight to catch the hourglass-shaped constellation Orion with his bow pointed toward the horizon, slowly sinking as he’s trailed by hisContinue reading "The Sky This Week from April 12 to 19: Bid the...

Near Mars’ equator, a giant volcano has been hiding from us for decades. While the site had been observed by spacecraft since the 1970s, the volcano’s severe erosion disguised it. Researchers now suspect the volcano’s eruptions buried a nearby bed of glacial ice. The discovery, announced at this year’s Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, givesContinue reading "Scientists...

Weather is a one-day event. For all of the analysis of trends, of where clouds or Sun will mark the landscape, anything can happen on any given day. In Texas, the weather prospects for the Great American Eclipse looked bleak. For days, the idea that storms would plague the region of Dallas, or at leastContinue reading "An eclipse victory: What it was like at Love Field in Dallas" The post An...

Despite residing in the frigid outer realm of our solar system where the Sun is just a faraway speck of light, icy moons like Saturn’s Enceladus and Jupiter’s Europa are considered some of the most tantalizing places to search for alien life — thanks to liquid oceans sloshing beneath their frozen surfaces. Exploring such worldsContinue reading "NASA’s snake-like EELS robot impresses in...

Chirag Upreti, taken from Mazatlán, Mexico The Sun’s outer atmosphere isn’t the only corona in this image. An atmospheric corona is a ring around the Sun caused by sunlight diffracting through thin clouds, seen here in this photo of the April 8, 2024, total solar eclipse. The post A tale of two coronae appeared first on Astronomy...

If the James Webb telescope was 10 times more powerful, could we see the beginning of time? – Sam H., age 12, Prosper, Texas The James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST for short, is one of the most advanced telescopes ever built. Planning for JWST began over 25 years ago, and construction efforts spanned overContinue reading "Could a telescope ever see the beginning of time? An...

Many constellations have one very special deep sky object within their borders, something so famous that when you say, 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? Has toContinue reading "The Shy Five: Lesser known...

Observing has changed a lot in since Astronomy magazine was founded in 1973. Larger telescopes, better eyepieces, and improved filters are now widespread in the amateur astronomy community. But so is light pollution and increased haze from forest fire smoke. There seem to be fewer really dark nights for amateur astronomers, especially east of theContinue reading "Journey to the centers of galaxies...

It’s just after the Great North American Eclipse. If you missed it because of clouds, personal commitments, or travel problems, you may be wondering when your next chance will be. And if, on the other hand, you experienced it under a clear sky, you are probably ready for the next one. The following list containsContinue reading "How to see the next 20 years of eclipses, including the eclipse of...

Bruce Billings, taken from Torreón, Mexico The Great North American Eclipse of 2024 dazzled sungazers with multiple prominences dancing on the Sun’s limb, as seen in this video still. The post Totality in Torreón appeared first on Astronomy...

October 2000 Believe it or not, it actually is just a coincidence — and a happy one at that. The Moon and Sun have virtually the same angular size in our sky because the Sun is about 400 times wider than the Moon, but it’s also about 400 times farther away. This allows us toContinue reading "Why is the Moon exactly the same apparent size from Earth as the Sun? Surely this cannot be just...

The path of the 2024 total solar eclipse takes a much stranger path than the 2017 event. Astronomy: Roen Kelly (This article was first published in 2016 and has been updated). The Moon’s orbit intersects Earth’s orbit around the Sun — the ecliptic — at two points called nodes. When this intersection occurs very nearContinue reading "Why does the April 8 eclipse path take a stranger path...