Hot on the tail of the Quadrantids meteor shower, another spectacle in the sky is about to arrive: comet Atlas C/2024 G3, which will reach perihelion—the point of its orbit closest to the sun—on January 13. On the same day, we will also see it at its closest point to Earth, and it could become […]
The Orionids typically yield about 20 to 25 meteors per hour during their peak and are known for being particularly bright—many of the Orionids are fireball meteors. Like the Eta Aquariids, the Orionids are also debris left behind by Halley’s Comet. The Orionids appear to radiate from the constellation Orion, which rises around 11 pm […]
A similar STEM immersion sequence was offered September 14-15 to 23 AAA teachers who attended a curriculum teaching workshop, learned about current infrared astronomy research from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists, and received guided visits to the Keck Observatory’s remote observing facility on the Caltech campus and the Mt. Wilson Observatory, including a half-night’s reserved […]
Almost no one ever writes about the Parker Solar Probe anymore. Sure, the spacecraft got some attention when it launched. It is, after all, the fastest-moving object that humans have ever built. At its maximum speed, goosed by the gravitational pull of the sun, the probe reaches a velocity of 430,000 miles per hour, or […]
Welcome to the official beginning of astronomical winterwhich is marked by the winter solstice. In 2024, the winter solstice for the northern hemisphere starts on December 21 around 4:20 am EST. While this time won’t be as dramatic as the 2020 conjunction of Jupiter and Saturnthe longest night of the year remains a significant turning […]
A “domino effect” may occur in star systems whereby newly formed planets close to a star help … [+] shepherd dust and gas to create more planets farther out in the system. getty Astronomers using a mountain covered in 66 radio telescopes have revealed a “domino effect” or chain reaction mechanism where the formation of […]
In 2025, we might detect the first signs of life outside our solar system. Crucial to this potential breakthrough is the 6.5-meter-diameter James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Launched aboard an Ariane-5 rocket from Kourou, a coastal town in French Guiana, in 2021, the JWST is our biggest space telescope to date. Since it began collecting […]
Earth, sun, moon: three objects in space whose interactions have a pretty big impact on our lives. Earth orbits the sun once a year, and it rotates on its axis about once a day (depending on your definition of “rotate”). This gives us the night-day sequence and the yearly cycle of the seasons. The moon’s […]
Pluto is probably best known for being a demoted planet. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union stripped it of its original classification, after narrowing the definition of a planet to be one that clears its orbit with its gravitational heft. Pluto doesn’t meet this membership criterion because its orbit is peppered with other icy bodies […]
Carlyn Kranking Assistant Editor, Science and Innovation Beginning to familiarize yourself with the night sky can feel daunting—with so many pinpricks of light above, parsing the constellations or identifying individual stars can be a lofty task. One starting point is to learn to find the brightest ones. In a rural sky dense with stars, the […]
