Steve Leonard, taken from Markham, Ontario The Cave Nebula (Sharpless 2–155) is an object that features emission, reflection, and dark nebulae. This Hα/OIII/SII image with exposures of 10, 13, and 6 hours, respectively, taken with a 4.5-inch refractor, was processed as a blend of a static Hubble-palette rendition and a dynamic Foraxx-palette combination of channels. The post The colors of the...

Astronomy was the basis of many key beliefs for the ancient Egyptians. They used skywatching to fix the dates of religious festivals, to predict the annual flooding of the Nile, and to count the hours of the night — when the god Ra would pilot his Sun boat on a dangerous journey through the underworld,Continue reading "The Milky Way, to ancient Egyptians, was probably mixed Nuts" The post The...

Why don’t numbers end? – Reyhane, age 7, Tehran, Iran Here’s a game: Ask a friend to give you any number and you’ll return one that’s bigger. Just add “1” to whatever number they come up with and you’re sure to win. The reason is that numbers go on forever. There is no highest number.Continue reading "The reasons why numbers go on forever" The post The reasons why numbers go on...

This review of the Celestron NexStar Evolution 8HD was first published in the February 2021 issue of Astronomy Magazine. It has been updated and contains affiliate links to the current model of this telescope. When you buy a product through a button on this page, we may earn a commission. When I was a teenager,Continue reading "Celestron NexStar Evolution 8HD telescope, reviewed" The post...

Click or tap each of the links below to open a .PDF of the index in a new window. Downloadable File(s) The post Astronomy Magazine Annual Index appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

Friday, April 26The Moon passes 0.3° north of the red giant star Antares in Scorpius today at 5 P.M. EDT. The pair is not visible in the early evening, rising in the hour before local midnight.  You can catch them overnight tonight by looking southeast around 11:30 P.M. local daylight time — by that time,Continue reading "The Sky This Week from April 26 to May 3: The Moon reaches Last...

The IceCube detector. Credit: Stephan Richter, IceCube/NSF, Creative Commons The post IceCube researchers detect a rare type of particle sent from powerful astronomical objects appeared first on Astronomy...

When NASA released images of Pluto in 2015 taken by the New Horizons spacecraft, many were captivated by the dwarf planet’s heart-shaped feature, now called Tombaugh Regio. And now the mystery of how this “heart,” which is nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) across, came to be may be solved. A recent study in Nature Astronomy reveals how theContinue reading "A collision with...

How many stars die in the Milky Way each year? Martin J. HeuerSt. Petersburg, Florida Before diving into the astronomy here, we first need to acknowledge that we are borrowing the word die, which really belongs to biology. While we can try to apply the concepts of life and death to astronomy, so that starsContinue reading "How many stars die in the Milky Way each year?" The post How many stars die...

Editor’s note: This article was first published in 2020 and has been updated. When we stargaze, we bask in photons that have traveled for many millennia before reaching our eyes. To us, the stars appear fixed on a so-called celestial sphere that encapsulates our entire earthly existence. The truth, of course, is that no suchContinue reading "7 unconfirmed, unlucky tales of people killed by...

We’re now on the cusp of the seventh Starmus Festival, an amazing and unique celebration of science and music. I hope to see many of you there, in Bratislava, Slovakia, May 12–17. Starmus, which combines the words stars and music, is the creation of Director Garik Israelian, an astronomer in the Canary Islands who isContinue reading "Starmus: The world’s greatest science party" The post...

The following review of the Unistellar eQuinox 2 smart telescope contains affiliate links. When you buy a product through a button on this page, we may earn a commission. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the long-lived Hubble Space Telescope have been providing amazing images to earthbound viewers for some time now. Along withContinue reading "Unistellar eQuinox 2 smart telescope review"...

When it comes to its connection to the sky, Stonehenge is best known for its solar alignments. Every midsummer’s night tens of thousands of people gather at Stonehenge to celebrate and witness the rising Sun in alignment with the Heel stone standing outside of the circle. Six months later a smaller crowd congregates around the Heel stone to witness the...

Katya Echazarreta made history June 4, 2022, when she traveled to space aboard Blue Origin’s NS-21 flight as one of Space for Humanity’s citizen astronauts. Space for Humanity, an organization with a goal of making space accessible for all, has a Citizen Spaceflight Program that allows anyone to experience looking at Earth from above andContinue reading "Meet Katya Echazarreta, the first...

The origin of life on Earth is a profound mystery — including when it started and how the ingredients for it were assembled. And a new study aimed at answering the latter question finds that some building blocks didn’t need to have formed on Earth, but could have arrived from space. The study, published AprilContinue reading "Evidence grows that meteorites, comets could have brought essentials...

The Lyrid meteors peak this week — how many can you spot? Meteor showers are produced when specks of debris left behind by comets burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. For the Lyrids, we have Comet Thatcher (C/1861 G1) to thank. Every April, when Earth plows into Thatcher’s debris trail, we get a shower of meteors,Continue reading "Catch the Lyrid meteor shower: This Week in Astronomy with Dave...

Tonight and tomorrow morning offer you a chance to see one of the oldest known meteor showers: the Lyrids. The Lyrid meteor shower peaks late Monday night. The best time to catch shower meteors will be early on the morning of Tuesday, April 23. That’s because during the early-morning hours, observers are standing on theContinue reading "How to see the Lyrid meteor shower: Peak times and where to...

By the end of this decade, the Moon will be bustling with activity. Our closest celestial neighbor will witness the arrival of the first batch of astronauts since the Apollo era over half a century ago. Dozens of robotic explorers will be placed on and around it by multiple countries vying for permanent bases onContinue reading "What time is it on the Moon? We might soon know" The post What time...

Early last month, a hunk of metal crashed into a Florida home and tore through two floors before it punctured the floor, missing the homeowner’s son by two rooms. A home security camera recorded the crash at 2:34 pm local time (19:34 UTC) on March 8; five minutes prior, the U.S. Space Command cataloged theContinue reading "The metal chunk that burst through a Florida home came from the ISS" The...

The most volcanic body in the solar system, Io is an infernal hellworld that constantly spits sulfurous magma into space. And a new study suggests that it’s been that way for a long, long time. The study, published in Science, indicates that for most of — or possibly all — its 4.57 billion years ofContinue reading "Jupiter’s moon Io has likely been active for our solar system’s entire...

Friday, April 19The Moon reaches apogee, the farthest point from Earth in its orbit, at 10:10 P.M. EDT. Our satellite will sit 252,043 miles (405,624 kilometers) away at that time. As the Moon rises this evening, you’ll notice it is nearly Full. We’re just a few days from that lunar phase, as sunrise quickly sweepsContinue reading "The Sky This Week from April 19 to 26: Look out for bright...

Three hours before the 2024 total solar eclipse veiled parts of Indiana, the early afternoon cacophony of birds echoes through the forest. The rapid woody knock of a downy woodpecker, the longing call from a mourning dove, the cardinal’s signature whistle, and the lazy buzz of a bumble bee are all noted in the observationContinue reading "While millions watched the eclipse, these Purdue...

Atop a small hill, just north of Samarkand, Uzbekistan, lie the remains of what was once the most advanced astronomical observatory in the world. While the building itself has not survived, the underground section of its 151-foot-long sextant remains intact. The observatory and the discoveries made there sprang from the passion of a single man,Continue reading "The clever prince Ulugh Beg built...

Abhijit Patil, taken from Death Valley National Park, California The Milky Way is reflected in the flooded salt flats of Death Valley’s Badwater Basin in this 21-panel panorama with an astro-modified Nikon Z 6ii and zoom lens at 20mm. Sky panels were exposures of 180 seconds taken at f/3.2 and ISO 800; foreground and reflectionContinue reading "Salt lake pretty" The post Salt lake pretty...