It might sound surprising that there’s ever any kind of problem – there’s a lot of space around the Moon. But many of the spacecraft follow similar orbits.

Many of them orbit from pole to pole, allowing them to study the entire lunar surface. And there’s no system for tracking the second-by-second locations of the orbiters.

Instead, NASA engineers with a project called MADCAP track the “orbital elements” of every craft in orbit around the Moon and Mars – a set of details that includes altitude, the angle of the orbit, and much more. Computers constantly plot the motions of every craft for which they have those details. If it looks like there might be a dangerously close encounter, the alert goes out. Operators of the conflicting missions then get together to find a solution.

Overall, the number of alerts is small. But in December 2024 it jumped to more than 20. And with more lunar missions scheduled, we can expect more “red alerts” in the years ahead.

The crescent Moon is in the west as darkness falls. The brilliant planet Venus – the “evening star” – is close to the right.

Script by Damond Benningfield

But a recent study says that some stars could be powered in part by dark matter. That could affect how long the stars live, and make them look younger than they really are.

Dark matter accounts for about 85 percent of all the matter in the universe. It produces no energy. We know it’s there only because its gravity tugs the visible matter around it. It may consist of some type of subatomic particle, but no one’s found it.

But if certain types of dark-matter particles ram together, they may cancel each other with a flash. The study says that could impact stars in the center of the galaxy, where dark matter is tightly packed.

Massive stars, with stronger gravity, could pull in more dark matter. That would keep them going practically forever. And it would make them look younger. Lighter stars couldn’t pull in enough dark matter to keep them going. Instead, the dark-matter reactions would blow the stars apart.

A cluster at the heart of the galaxy contains many heavy stars that look young in some ways, but old in others. And the cluster doesn’t have any lightweight stars. That combination could mean that the evolution of the stars in that region is being influenced by dark matter.

Script by Damond Benningfield

The central object is called Sagittarius A-star. It’s about 4.3 million times the mass of the Sun. A few years ago, astronomers took a picture of its “shadow” against a glowing background.

Sagittarius A-star is encircled by stars and dusty clumps in tight orbits. They’re accelerated to millions of miles per hour by the gravity of the central object.

The new study suggested that object could be a knot of dark matter particles known as fermions. Dark matter produces no detectable energy, but its gravity pulls on the visible matter around it. It appears to make up about 85 percent of all the matter in the universe, but its nature remains unknown. The clump could account for many of the observed qualities of the central dark object.

Other studies have suggested that dark matter could produce fountains of gamma rays that shoot from the galaxy’s core. Dark-matter particles could produce the gamma rays when they ram together and cancel each other out.

The dark-matter model doesn’t explain all of the evidence of a black hole. But future instruments should be able to discern between the two models – providing a definitive explanation for the darkness at the galaxy’s heart.

More about dark matter tomorrow.

Script by Damond Benningfield

A spiral arm is a region where a passing wave squeezes giant clouds of gas and dust, triggering the birth of new stars. Many of the stars are especially hot and bright, so they light up the spiral arms.

The star-forming clouds are dense and turbulent. And a recent study suggested that could be where the “danger” comes in.

Researchers looked at tiny crystals in Earth’s crust. They found that the composition of the crystals varied over periods of hundreds of millions of years.

During some of those periods, Earth’s crust appeared to be especially hot. And the timing of those periods may correspond to passages through the spiral arms.

As we move through the dense clouds in the arms, big balls of ice and rock far from the Sun could be nudged inward. Some of them could ram into Earth, creating conditions that could account for some of the crystals. So while the Milky Way’s spiral arms may be beautiful, they may also be deadly.

Look for the glowing band of the Milky Way curving across the east as night falls, and arching high overhead later on.

Script by Damond Benningfield

That band outlines the disk of our home galaxy. So for the astronomers who study the Milky Way Galaxy, it’s the go-zone – there’s lots to look at. But for those who study other galaxies, it’s been the no-go zone. In fact, it’s called the Zone of Avoidance, because it’s hard to see anything through it.

The main problem is giant clouds of dust scattered throughout the galaxy. The dust absorbs visible light. Depending on which part of the disk you look through, in fact, the clouds can block more than 99 percent of the light from objects behind them.

The other problem is that the Milky Way is crowded – millions upon millions of stars everywhere you look. So when you look into the band of the Milky Way, it’s hard to know whether you’re seeing a star or gas cloud in the galaxy or something beyond it.

Fortunately, some wavelengths that are invisible to the human eye do get through: infrared light and radio waves. The infrared is best seen from space, but the radio can be turned in by giant antennas on the ground. Galaxies typically emit more of both of those forms of energy than individual stars do – important ways to avoid problems from the Zone of Avoidance.

More about the Milky Way tomorrow.

Script by Damond Benningfield

But nature has provided a way to see the forest through the trees: galactic radio. Big clouds of hydrogen gas emit radio waves at a wavelength of 21 centimeters – eight and a quarter inches. The radio waves pass through the intervening material, giving us a good outline of the structure of the Milky Way.

That wavelength is produced when hydrogen atoms get “bumped up” to a higher energy level. When the atoms drop back to their base level, they emit radio waves. This process plays out most commonly in clouds where new stars are being born.

Mapping the clouds revealed that the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy – a beautiful cosmic pinwheel. And measuring the motions of the clouds reveals how that pinwheel spins. So a lot of what we know about the Milky Way has come to us through the broadcasts of “galactic radio.”

The Milky Way arcs across the east as night falls. You need dark skies to see it. The center of the galaxy is in Sagittarius, which is low in the southeast. It’s easy to pick out because its stars form the outline of a teapot.

Script by Damond Benningfield

The Milky Way is our home galaxy. It’s a disk about a hundred-thousand light-years wide. Earth is about half-way between the center of the disk and its rim. In the night sky, the disk forms the faint path called the Milky Way. But you need nice dark skies to see it.

The center is in the constellation Sagittarius. Its most prominent stars form the outline of a teapot. Puffs of “steam” appear to rise from the spout of the teapot. The center of the galaxy is immersed in the steam.

We can’t see the center because intervening clouds of dust absorb its light. But if we could see it, it would be impressive. Billions of stars are jammed together – far more tightly packed than in our region of the galaxy.

The anti-center is in Taurus, which is low in the east at dawn. That point is marked by the star Elnath. It’s the bull’s second-brightest star, at the tip of one of his horns. And it’s easy to spot tomorrow because it’s quite close to the crescent Moon.

Except for Elnath, there’s not much to see in that direction. We’re looking toward the galaxy’s thinly settled outer precincts, with intergalactic space beyond. Enjoy the panorama of the Milky Way – our galactic home – all night long.

Script by Damond Benningfield

Orbiting spacecraft have photographed some likely cave entrances on both worlds. They’re big holes in the ground. They may lead to larger chambers on the sides.

On the Moon, the caves probably were excavated by lava flowing below the surface. After the lava disappeared, parts of the empty tubes they left behind caved in, providing the openings. The side chambers could be good places to set up lunar habitats.

Most of the caves on Mars probably formed the same way. But a recent study found eight caves that might have been carved by water. The caves were seen in a region that’s marked by deep channels that carried water in the distant past. The surface water dried up long ago. But the caves could lead to buried pools of ice. If life ever evolved on Mars, it might have survived in those damp locations. So the caves could be a good place to check for life on the Red Planet.

The Moon and Mars line up with the star Aldebaran in tomorrow’s dawn sky. Mars looks like a bright star to the lower right of the Moon. Aldebaran is an even brighter star, about the same distance to the lower right of Mars.

Script by Damond Benningfield

Consider the Coathanger – a pattern of 10 stars that really does resemble a coat hanger. It’s in the constellation Vulpecula, the fox.

For decades, astronomers thought those stars formed a cluster. A cluster’s stars are all the same age and same distance, and they formed from the same ingredients. But some of the stars in a cluster are small and light, while others are big and heavy. Seeing how the different weight classes have evolved helps astronomers understand how all stars age.

But a study in 1970 found that only a few of the Coathanger’s stars were related. And a later study, which used a satellite to plot the distances to stars, found that none of them are related – they just happen to line up in the same direction. So plotting the third dimension robbed the Coathanger of some of its scientific value – but none of its beauty.

The Coathanger is a great target for binoculars. Sweep them from the bright star Altair, which is low in the east at nightfall, toward even brighter Vega, far to its upper left. The Coathanger is about a third of the way along that line – a beautiful grouping that’s not really a group at all.

Script by Damond Benningfield

The system is in Cygnus, the swan. The constellation is high in the east at nightfall, marked by Deneb, the swan’s bright tail. 61 Cygni is to the lower right of Deneb. Under dark skies, it’s just visible to the eye alone.

61 Cygni consists of two stars. Both are smaller, lighter, and cooler than the Sun, and much fainter. They orbit each other once every 650 years or so.

In 1804, Giuseppe Piazzi discovered that the system moves across the sky in a hurry. That suggested that the system is close by. So astronomers started trying to figure out just how close.

They looked at the star at intervals of six months, when Earth was on opposite sides of the Sun. That slight change in perspective causes nearby stars to move a bit compared to stars that are farther away.

Early attempts to measure that angle didn’t work – the equipment just wasn’t good enough. But in 1837 and ’38, Friedrich Bessel used a new instrument that provided a sharper view. It told him that 61 Cygni was 10.4 light-years away. That’s just one light-year off the true distance. So Bessel’s work provided the first good measurement of the distance to any star other than the Sun.

Script by Damond Benningfield