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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