Visible in Scotland, the total solar eclipse of Aug. 2, 1133, featured nearly 4½ minutes of totality. This eclipse provides just one of many historical examples of people wrongly associating a celestial spectacle with an earthly event: In his Historia Novella, written between 1140 and 1143, English historian William of Malmesbury linked the eclipse withContinue reading "Aug. 2, 1133: A total eclipse is misremembered"

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  August 1: Open cluster NGC 6709 Mercury reaches its greatest western elongation at 4 A.M. EDT, standing 19° from the Sun. The tiny planet reaches an altitude of almost 5° above the eastern horizon an hour before sunrise, glowing at magnitude 0.2.Continue reading "The Sky Today on Sunday, August 2: Mercury at greatest western elongation"

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Born Aug. 1, 1818, Maria Mitchell was raised in the Quaker tradition, which allowed equal education for boys and girls. This, plus lessons from her father, afforded her the opportunity to become skilled in astronomy, mathematics, and navigation. After a brief stint as a teacher, she became the first librarian of the Nantucket Antheneum. SheContinue reading "Aug 1, 1818: The birth of Maria Mitchell"

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  July 31: Mercury brightening With the Moon rising later each night as it wanes, there’s a slightly longer dark window tonight for deep-sky observing. Let’s use it to track down NGC 6709, a lovely open cluster in the constellation Aquila the Eagle. Continue reading "The Sky Today on Saturday, August 1: Open cluster NGC 6709"

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A partial lunar eclipse is visible across the U.S. this month, while a total solar eclipse occurs in Europe. Venus dominates after sunset, reaching 50% illumination. Most planetary activity is after midnight, as Saturn and Neptune rise in Pisces. The predawn hours reveal a fine conjunction between Jupiter and Mercury. And Mars crosses into Gemini,Continue reading "August 2026: What’s in the sky this month? Solar and lunar eclipses, plus the Perseid meteors"

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Although the early evening sky boasts only one naked-eye planet, quality more than makes up for the lack of quantity. Venus attains a splendid peak when it reaches greatest elongation Aug. 15. It then lies 46° east of the Sun and stands 30° high in the west an hour after sundown. The planet shines brilliantlyContinue reading "August 2026: What’s in the Southern Hemisphere sky this month?"

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Star formation in the nearby Andromeda Galaxy (M31) has been slowing down over the last 500 million years, according to a new study using Hubble Space Telescope data.  The study was published July 27, 2026, in The Astrophysical Journal. Lead author Tobin Wainer, an astronomer at the University of Washington, and his team used dataContinue reading "Andromeda’s star formation is slowing down"

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Astrophotography tends to blur the boundary between science and art. The incredible images from Hubble and JWST, for example, captivate us as much for their aesthetic beauty as for their data. Recently, a photography student blurred those lines even further, taking the concept of capturing the cosmos quite literally by creating images from film’s interactionContinue reading "How one student captured the universe without light"

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With the Space Race heating up, the Ranger program was developed as an answer to Sputnik: The U.S. would land spacecraft on the Moon. When President John F. Kennedy vowed in 1961 to put a man on the lunar surface, the project evolved. Instead of being purely scientific or exploratory, Ranger spacecraft would also beContinue reading "July 31, 1964: Ranger 7 returns the first close pictures of the Moon"

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Born on July 25, 1920, Chushiro Hayashi graduated from the University of Tokyo with a degree in physics in 1942. After World War II service in the navy, he returned to school, finishing his doctorate in 1954 and becoming a professor at Kyoto University in 1957. An innovator, he applied fundamental physics to astronomy andContinue reading "July 25, 1920: The birth of Chushiro Hayashi"

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  July 24: The Moon passes Antares Rising in the east around 10:30 P.M. local daylight time is the Great Square of Pegasus, made up of four stars: Algenib, Markab, Scheat, and Alpheratz. But of these four, only the first three on theContinue reading "The Sky Today on Saturday, July 25: Great Square rising"

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Having launched on July 16, 1969, and landed on the Moon on July 20, the Apollo 11 astronauts returned home and splashed down in the Pacific on July 24, 1969. In a historically momentous trip, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had become the first people to step onto the Moon. (The third member of theirContinue reading "July 24, 1969: Apollo 11 returns home"

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  July 23: Mercury’s retrograde path ends The Moon passes 0.6° south of Antares, the heart of Scorpius the Scorpion, at 6 P.M. EDT. This evening, the two remain nestled close, a lovely sight in the southern sky after sunset.  About 90 minutesContinue reading "The Sky Today on Friday, July 24: The Moon passes Antares"

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Friday, July 24The Moon passes 0.6° south of the bright red star Antares in Scorpius at 6 P.M. EDT. This evening, the two remain nestled close, a lovely sight in the southern sky after sunset. You’ll find the pair in the south early this evening, slowly arcing down toward the west throughout the evening. AtContinue reading "The Sky This Week from July 24 to 31: The Southern Delta Aquariids peak"

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Gerald Rhemann, taken from Farm Tivoli, Namibia The Helix Nebula (NGC 7293) is a planetary nebula around 650 light-years away in Aquarius, the glowing remains of a dying, Sun-like star’s outer layers. They now surround a hot white dwarf left at the nebula’s center. The imager captured about 24.3 hours of exposure in Hα/OIII/LRGB filtersContinue reading "A glowing eye"

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Earth’s orbit is getting crowded. About 16,000 satellites currently circle our planet, supporting everything from GPS navigation and weather forecasting to banking, emergency services and internet communications. Dozens more are launched every few weeks. Some estimates suggest the total number of satellites could exceed 100,000 within this decade, with more conservative estimates landing on up to 60,000 satellites byContinue reading "There are already 16,000 satellites in Earth’s orbit. How will we manage the next 100,000?"

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On July 23, 1999, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory launched aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia; it would see first light a few weeks later, on Aug. 26. With resolution eight times greater than any previous scope, Chandra is the most powerful X-ray telescope ever built. The observatory is intended to help scientists understand the universe’s evolutionContinue reading "July 23, 1999: Chandra X-Ray Observatory launches"

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  July 22: Dione passes north of Saturn The planet Mercury is stationary at 1 P.M. EDT. Located in the constellation Gemini, the tiny world is now rising before the Sun, visible for a short time in the east before sunrise. However, it’sContinue reading "The Sky Today on Thursday, July 23: Mercury’s retrograde path ends"

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In 1839, the president of Harvard University invited William Bond to move into a house on campus and, by virtue of bringing along his own astronomical equipment, become the university’s first astronomer in residence. With public interest spurred by the 1835 passage of Halley’s Comet and the Comet of 1843, Harvard soon had enough moneyContinue reading "July 16, 1850: Bond and Whipple photograph Vega"

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  July 15: The Summer Triangle overhead The nearly three-day-old Moon passes 0.5° south of Regulus, the heart of Leo the Lion, at 9 P.M. EDT. Just after sunset, you’ll be able to spot the delicate crescent Moon in the west, with brightContinue reading "The Sky Today on Thursday, July 16: The Moon passes the Lion’s heart"

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