NASA’s Pegasus barge arrives at the Launch Complex 39 turn basin at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Sunday, June 21, 2026.
Read MoreMost amateur astronomers live with light pollution. When a free schedule, the New Moon, and the ability to travel to a dark site align, you have a night to remember. But like finding a valuable old coin in your change, such nights are the exception, not the rule. However, there’s no need to consider the restContinue reading “Stargazing under city lights”
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The Moon’s rocky, uneven, and otherworldly surface features are highlighted by the terminator – the difference between light and darkness.
Read MoreChris Schur, taken from Payson, Arizona In 1983, NASA’s pioneering Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) imaged the sky and found dust trails littered throughout the solar system. The cause turned out to be comets, which leave trails of dust that build up in their orbit. The dust trail of 10P/Tempel (also known as Comet Tempel 2)Continue reading “Comet Tempel 2’s dust trail”
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Using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers may have found a supernova remnant in an intriguing neighborhood in the middle of our galaxy.
Read MoreRocket launches this week Tonight, Monday, June 22, according to tracking from Next Spaceflight, The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) plans to launch a Long March 7A rocket from the Wenchang Space Launch Site located in the South China Sea on the island of Hainan at 10:10 p.m. EDT. The payload has notContinue reading “SpaceX tests new vehicle, Swift gets a lift”
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Read MoreStonehenge, the infamous stone circle on Salisbury Plain, U.K., dates to around 2500 B.C.E. The monument is aligned so that if you are standing at the center of the ring on the summer soltice (which can be June 20, 21, or 22), the Sun rises over the Heel Stone; solstice celebrations are believed to haveContinue reading “June 21, ca. 2500 BCE: Summering at Stonehenge”
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Read MoreOn June 20, 1943, Pingualuit Crater (formerly known as Chubb Crater and as the New Quebec Crater) was first photographed by a U.S. Army Air Force crew during a meterological flight over northern Quebec. Formed approximately 1.4 million years ago by a meteorite impact, the 2.1-mile-wide (3.4 kilometers) crater has an unusually circular shape resultingContinue reading “June 20, 1955: Pingualuit Crater is discovered”
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Read MoreOn June 19, 2004, at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, astronomers Roy Tucker, David Tholen, and Fabrizio Bernardi discovered Asteroid Apophis. This Near-Earth Object (NEO), approximately 1,099 to 1,230 feet (335 to 375 meters) wide, reached the highest ever rating of level 4 out of 10 on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale,Continue reading “June 19, 2004: Astroid Apophis is discovered”
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This NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month shows the giant molecular cloud Orion A, an area of the sky replete with star-forming clouds.
Read MoreWe’re used to a lot of different natural things falling out of the sky. These can include snow, rain, and sometimes even frogs (yes, really). All of these relate to weather phenomena. Far more exotic things fall from the sky that are not related to weather. Earth is pelted by about 14 tons of micrometeoritesContinue reading “A meteorite impact may have once rained gold on Western Australia – new study”
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The wait is almost over. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is just weeks, maybe even just days, away from officially beginning its landmark 10-year sky survey, according to officials at the 248th American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Pasadena this week. “A lot of people in the community are waiting for that moment for theContinue reading “Vera C. Rubin Observatory days away from launching decade-long sky survey”
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Read MoreMassimo Di Fusco, taken via Chilescope NGC 6727 is a reflection nebula and star-forming region in Corona Australis, part of the larger Corona Australis Molecular Cloud. It is accompanied in this image by globular cluster NGC 6723, sometimes called the Chandelier Cluster. This wide-field portrait combines 54 minutes of RGB exposure with a 20-inch f/3.8Continue reading “A glob and a stellar nursery”
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A period of unsettled weather brought scattered showers and thunderstorms to California’s Bay Area on May 27, 2026. That afternoon, a break in the clouds left downtown San Francisco and nearby communities beneath mostly cloud-free skies, allowing an astronaut aboard the International Space Station to take this photograph.
Read MoreAstronomers have created a comprehensive census of active galactic nuclei (AGN) — galaxies powered by a feeding central black hole. The new census, led by data pipeline developer Mugdha Polimera at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, began while she was a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,Continue reading “Active black holes are more common than we thought”
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Read MoreOn June 14, 1949, a rhesus monkey named Albert II was launched into space aboard a V-2 rocket from White Sands, New Mexico. Prior to Albert II, animals including fruit flies, mice, and another monkey (Albert I) had been launched in rocket and balloon flights as part of American space biology research, but Albert II’sContinue reading “June 14, 1949: The first mammal in space”
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Read MorePioneer 10 holds the titles for many “firsts”: It was NASA’s first mission to the outer planets, the first spacecraft to fly beyond Mars, the first to traverse the asteroid belt, and the first to fly past Jupiter. It was also the first spacecraft placed on a trajectory to escape the solar system into interstellarContinue reading “June 13, 1983: Pioneer 10 leaves solar system”
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Easily identified by the spectacular band of dark dust that partially obscures its bright core, Messier 64, or the Black Eye Galaxy, is characterized by its bizarre internal motion.
Read MoreOn June 12, 2021, Nova Herculis 2021 (V1674 Herculis) erupted, and was discovered by amateur astronomer Seiji Ueda of Japan. The white dwarf quickly became visible to the naked eye, surging to 10,000 times brighter than it originally had been. Its speed was unprecedented: V1674 Herculis faded from that peak brightness in just over oneContinue reading “June 12, 2021: Seiji Ueda discovers Nova Herculis 2021”
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Researchers tested soccer balls aboard the International Space Station to study how internal mass affects motion and stability in microgravity.
Read MoreIn Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, opening tomorrow, protagonists race across the globe to expose a decades-long government cover-up and reveal to the world that extraterrestrial life is real. It’s a question Spielberg has been asking since his 1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind: How would the knowledge of extraterrestrial intelligence change us? Spielberg makesContinue reading “The real disclosure day: The protocols for announcing extraterrestrial intelligence”
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A train transports eight booster motor segments for the SLS (Space Launch System rocket) that will power NASA’s Artemis III mission from Northrop Grumman’s Railyard Shipping Facility in Corinne, Utah, June 2, to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Read MoreEugene 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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NASA announced the Artemis III crew on Tuesday, June 9, 2026. NASA astronaut Andre Douglas, mission specialist; ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano, pilot; NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, commander; and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, mission specialist, will demonstrate the Orion spacecraft’s rendezvous and docking capabilities with test versions from one, or both, American commercial human landing systems in development by Blue Origin and SpaceX.
Read MoreNASA 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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NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft completed its first supersonic flight Friday, June 5, 2026, marking the first time the aircraft exceeded the speed of sound in support of NASA’s Quesst mission. The milestone represents a major step in flight testing as the aircraft expands into the supersonic portion of its flight envelope.
Read MoreWhy 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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Read MoreNASA 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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Read MoreLooking 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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A year after America’s first spacewalk, Gemini IX-A Eugene Cernan stepped outside his spacecraft for an ambitious extravehicular activity scheduled for 167 minutes. The challenges he faced led NASA to reevaluate plans, equipment, and training for future spacewalks.
Read MoreLooking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column. June 4: Jupiter passes south of Pollux Now that the Red Planet is rising roughly an hour before the Sun, let’s check in on Mars in the predawn sky. The nearby world now has time to climb well above the horizon, leadingContinue reading “The Sky Today on Friday, June 5: Check in on Mars”
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During its 61st close flyby of Jupiter on May 12, 2024, NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured this color-enhanced view of the giant planet’s northern hemisphere.
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The brainchild of George Ellery Hale, the 200-inch Hale Telescope was dedicated June 3, 1948, at Palomar Observatory in California. In promoting and fundraising for the project, Hale had a firm science agenda for the scope, but also wrote more fancifully of “the lure of the uncharted seas of space”; though he died in 1938,Continue reading “June 3, 1948: Hale Telescope dedicated”
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Astronauts Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency) and Jack Hathaway of NASA, both Expedition 74 flight engineers, look out a window in the cupola.
Read MoreNew observatories and spacecraft missions are probing environments in our solar system that could potentially host life but have long remained hidden. Icy moons like Saturn’s Enceladus and Jupiter’s Europa likely contain oceans beneath frozen outer shells. But a layer of ice prohibits space probes from sampling them directly. Exploring these icy moons is almost forensic: Their surfaces keep aContinue reading “Scientists used a method from ecology to identify whether icy moons could hold conditions for life”
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This image of Westerlund 2 features Chandra X-ray Observatory data (pink) and James Webb infrared data (red, orange, green, cyan, and blue).
Read MoreOccasionally I see references in Astronomy to the speed of something as “supersonic.” I’m having trouble reconciling this term with velocities typically found among astronomical objects. Wouldn’t “relativistic” be closer to the truth? Anything close to sonic speeds in Earth’s atmosphere wouldn’t cover much distance in outer space. Peter IanchiouTucson, Arizona One would certainly thinkContinue reading “What does the term ‘supersonic’ mean in astronomy?”
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Read MoreIn the 1960s, two organizations were formed for cooperation around a European presence in space: the European Space Research Organization, which focused on scientific research, and the European Launcher Development Organization, which concentrated on engineering launch systems. By the end of the decade, however, dissatisfaction was growing with this split structure, and in 1968, theContinue reading “May 31, 1975: ESA begins operations”
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This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image captures the faint glow of the dwarf irregular galaxy ESO 490-017.
Read MoreHarry Clement Stubbs – perhaps better known by his penname, Hal Clement – was born near Boston on May 30, 1922. Stubbs earned a B.S. in astronomy from Harvard University in 1943, followed by master’s degrees in chemistry and education. After military service in the Army Air Corps in World War II, he began workContinue reading “May 30, 1922: The birth of Harry Clement Stubbs”
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Read MoreAs winter’s brilliant stars slip toward the western horizon and the constellations of spring climb higher, Northern Hemisphere observers discover a quieter but richly rewarding sky. Spring is celebrated for its galaxies, yet our own Milky Way offers an equally compelling bounty of open and globular clusters. From youthful, loosely packed groups that still sparkleContinue reading “Observe spring’s star clusters”
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NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft flies above NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, during testing focused on lower-speed and altitude flight conditions in support of NASA’s Quesst mission. NASA continues to include two-flight days in its envelope expansion as teams work to better understand how the aircraft responds throughout its operating range.
Read MoreIn ancient times, a total solar eclipse might have ended a war over territory between the Lydians, inhabitants of modern Turkey, and the Medes, who lived in what is now Iran. The two peoples had been fighting for over five years, but that ended on May 28, 585 B.C.E. Greek historian Herodotus wrote about theContinue reading “May 28, 585 B.C.E.: A war-ending eclipse”
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Katherine Rauscher, of Michigan Technological University, prepares her team’s prototype lunar robot for its turn during the finals for NASA’s 2026 Lunabotics Challenge competition on Tuesday, May 19, 2026, inside the Astronauts Memorial Foundation’s Center for Space Education at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. Forty-seven teams from around the U.S. designed and built remote-controlled robots capable of traversing challenging lunar terrain while constructing regolith-based berm under conditions similar to those the agency will face as it returns to the lunar surface through Artemis.
Read MoreThe phenomenon of a Full Moon arises when our planet, Earth, is precisely sandwiched between the Sun and the Moon. This alignment ensures the entire side of the Moon that faces us gleams under sunlight. Thanks to the Moon’s orbit around Earth, the angle of sunlight hitting the lunar surface and being reflected back toContinue reading “2026 Full Moon calendar: When to see the Full Moon and phases”
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Chennai, on India’s southern coast along the Bay of Bengal and with a metropolitan population of about 8.7 million, shines with white LED streetlights in this photograph taken at approximately 9:13 p.m. local time on May 2, 2026, from the International Space Station.
Read MoreLooking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column. May 25: Three planets after sunset Tonight, let’s compare the appearance of the Moon to that of a week ago to see the effects of lunar libration, the “nodding” motion caused by the tilt of the Moon’s orbit around Earth. High inContinue reading “The Sky Today on Tuesday, May 26: Enter Endymion”
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Read MoreLooking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column. May 24: Egeria slides on by After reaching superior conjunction midmonth, Mercury is increasing in visibility and should be easily identifiable now in the evening sky. Just half an hour after sunset, step outside to see if you can spot the solar system’sContinue reading “The Sky Today on Monday, May 25: Three planets after sunset”
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