Our home planet is like a target in a shooting gallery. It’s been hit many times by giant space rocks....More »
★Stargazing: January 27
The crescent Moon is in the southwest early this evening. It pairs up with Venus, the brilliant “evening star,” creating...More »
▶StarDate Radio: January 27 — Moon and Venus
Mining for gold and other minerals is risky. Miners can never be sure if they’re going to get rich —...More »
★Stargazing: January 26
The Rosette Nebula, named for its resemblance to a red rose, is a stellar nursery more than 100 light-years across....More »
▶StarDate Radio: January 26 — Unicorn Clouds
To the eye alone, the unicorn is a bust — there’s just not much to see. Look deeper, though, and...More »
★Stargazing: January 25
With a name that means “the unicorn,” you might expect the constellation Monoceros to have an interesting story. Instead, it...More »
▶StarDate Radio: January 25 — Monoceros
With a name that means “the unicorn,” you might expect the constellation Monoceros to have an interesting story. Unfortunately, though,...More »
★Stargazing: January 24
Fornax, the furnace, is named for a piece of lab equipment used by chemists of the 18th century. From the...More »
▶StarDate Radio: January 24 — Fornax
If Nicolas Louis de Lacaille were naming constellations today, he might call them the spectrometer, seismometer, or even DNA sequencer....More »
★Stargazing: January 23
The eastern sky offers some well-known sights on winter evenings. By around 9 o’clock tonight, for example, Leo is springing...More »
▶StarDate Radio: January 23 — Solar Telescope
The Sun is a giant presence in our sky. So you might think that astronomers don’t need big telescopes to...More »
★Stargazing: January 22
Three cats pad across the sky tonight. One is bright and fairly easy to find, but the others are faint....More »
▶StarDate Radio: January 22 — Living on the Sun
William Herschel was one of the top astronomers of his day. He discovered that the ice caps on Mars change...More »
2020 Sky Almanac
This year offers up some beautiful skywatching treats, including the opposition of Mars and the closest conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn in four centuries. You can find all the details on these and many others in our 2020 Sky Almanac. We also tell you about the rights and wrongs of astronomy and space exploration in science fiction.
