There is a pattern found in nature. It is indeed the largest pattern there is. It is so vast that it spans the universe, filling up its observable volume. The pattern is made of individual units in the same way your body is made of cells — if each of your cells were a galaxyContinue reading "Untangling the cosmic web"

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

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  June 9: Bright planets’ conjunction The Moon passes 6° due north of Saturn at 8 A.M. EDT; an hour before dawn, the pair is high in the eastern sky, perfect for early risers to enjoy.  Saturn is the brightest point of lightContinue reading "The Sky Today on Wednesday, June 10: The Moon shines with Saturn"

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Emmanuel Delgadillo from Jalisco, Mexico The Eagle Nebula (M16) is well-known for its dense star-forming pillars of gas and dust — including those in the famed Hubble Space Telescope’s “Fingers of Creation” image. It lies roughly 5,000 light-years away in Serpens. This photographer combined over 14 hours of exposure taken with Hα/OIII and SII/OIII dual-bandContinue reading "The Eagle’s lair"

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When NASA added a low Earth orbit test flight to the Artemis program in February, pushing the lunar landing from Artemis 3 to Artemis 4, it left the details sparse. On Tuesday, the agency filled them in. At a press conference, NASA named the four-person crew for Artemis 3, a 2027 Earth-orbit test flight thatContinue reading "Meet the astronauts flying on Artemis 3"

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NASA has ended its attempts to reconnect with the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft and begun decommissioning the orbiter, closing the book on a mission that spent over a decade studying how Mars lost its atmosphere. At a June 3 media conference, NASA officials announced that an anomaly review board — which wasContinue reading "NASA fails to reestablish contact, decommissions MAVEN"

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Celestron Nature DX ED 10x42mm Roof Binoculars CelestronTorrance, California Celestron Nature DX ED 10x42mm Roof Binoculars feature extra-low dispersion objective lenses and BaK-4 prisms, assuring proper color without fringing. All lenses are fully multicoated. The binoculars have a true field of view of 5.9° and can focus as close as 6.5 feet (2 meters). WeighingContinue reading "Kickstart summer with these new astronomy products"

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

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  June 8: Venus and Jupiter close in Venus and Jupiter have now inched closer together and stand 1.6° apart in the evening sky; the former officially passed due north of the latter at 8 A.M. EDT this morning.  Compare the view thisContinue reading "The Sky Today on Tuesday, June 9: Bright planets’ conjunction"

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Jeffrey Horne, taken from Nashville, Tennessee The Rosette Nebula (NGC 2237–9) is a vast star-forming complex about 5,000 light-years away in Monoceros. This portrait combines 200⅓ hours of SHO data taken from Jan. 1 to April 12, 2026, with a 5-inch f/5.6 scope. The extremely deep exposure reveals myriad delicate tendrils within the nebula, whereContinue reading "Budding stars"

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Rocket launches this week According to tracking from Next SpaceFlight, Chinese aerospace firm Landspace’s ZhuQue-2E Block 2 is scheduled to lift off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China at 4:20 a.m. EST on Tuesday, June 9. The ZhuQue-2E is a medium-lift rocket powered by liquid oxygen and methane — the first methane-fueled vehicleContinue reading "SpaceX and Rocket Lab set for liftoff this week"

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Why does one side of the Moon have a lot of craters, while the other side does not? Stephen LogesBrooksville, Florida When the first photos of the Moon’s farside were obtained, people usually expressed the difference between the back and the front in terms of “more craters on the back.” It might be better toContinue reading "Why does one side of the Moon have a lot of craters, while the other does not?"

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

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  June 7: The sky’s sunflower Venus passes 5° south of the star Pollux at noon EDT. You can view them after sunset in the west, as Venus and Jupiter are closing in for a conjunction. Tonight the planets are 1.7° apart, standingContinue reading "The Sky Today on Monday, June 8: Venus and Jupiter close in"

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

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  June 6: Albireo returns By the time the sky is dark around 10 P.M. local daylight time, the constellation Canes Venatici is still more than 70° high in the west. The Hunting Dogs hold our target for tonight: M63, also known asContinue reading "The Sky Today on Sunday, June 7: The sky’s sunflower"

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

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  June 5: Check in on Mars Look east around 11 P.M. local daylight time, and you’ll see three bright stars forming a triangle — this is the famous Summer Triangle asterism, which flies high overhead in the middle of short summer nights.Continue reading "The Sky Today on Saturday, June 6: Albireo returns"

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Carl Parnell, taken from Dawlish, Devon, UK The Jellyfish Nebula (IC 443 or Sharpless 2–248) is the remnant of a supernova that went off some 30,000 years ago in Gemini. Filling the top half of the image is a glowing molecular complex threaded by multiple dark nebula (LDN 1565–8). The supernova debris plowing into thisContinue reading "Sky nettle"

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Understanding the nature of our cosmos requires an accurate map of how galaxies are spread throughout it. For decades, astronomers suspected that something vast lurked behind the Milky Way’s dense, dusty disk in our sky. There were indirect, subtle distortions present in galaxy motions that we could see, showing unexplained gravitational pulls. But the structureContinue reading "Giant supercluster discovered hiding behind the Milky Way"

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