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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  November 3: Venus and Spica, side by side Tonight Jupiter sports a three-for-one as Io transits with its shadow in tow and Europa’s shadow sneaks onto the disk in preparation for its own moon to transit. Jupiter rises around 9:30 P.M. localContinue reading “The Sky Today on Tuesday, November 4: Two shadows and a moon cross Jupiter”

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  November 1: Dip into the Bay of Rainbows Daylight saving time ends today at 2 A.M. So, if you are in an area that observes daylight saving time, your clocks will “fall back” from 1:59 A.M. daylight time to 1 A.M. standardContinue reading “The Sky Today on Sunday, November 2: Neptune nestles between Saturn and the Moon”

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“Comets are like cats. They both have tails and do what they want,” said comet discoverer David Levy many times. Well, Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) is proving his words true. Most comet-watchers thought that Lemmon would reach its brightest October 21 when it was closest to Earth. But it continued to brighten for several days past that date.Continue reading “Comet Lemmon is still a worthy target”

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Mission Highlight: China’s Shenzhou-21 crew launch This week’s highlight is the upcoming launch of China’s Shenzhou-21 crewed mission to the Tiangong space station. While Xinhua states the launch will occur “at an appropriate time in the near future,” external sources such as Next Spaceflight report the Long March-2F carrier rocket is scheduled to lift offContinue reading “Shenzhou-21 crew headed to Tiangong Station this week”

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As humanity sets its sights on returning to the Moon and venturing to Mars, protecting the travelers who make the journey is a big challenge. A new guide to the emerging field of “astroimmunology” details one of the most critical threats astronauts face — that spaceflight cripples the human immune system — and offers aContinue reading “How spaceflight impacts the immune system”

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For the first time, astronomers have gotten a detailed look at how a supermassive black hole (SMBH) eats, discovering two large spiral arms of gas that are funneling its meals inward. The finding, made using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, has been accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics. It offers aContinue reading “Supermassive black hole seen feeding via a pair of spiral arms”

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Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) is currently a 5th-magnitude fuzzball low in the northwestern sky. This means that, from a dark site, sharp-eyed observers could glimpse it with their naked eyes. And it’s predicted to get brighter. By how much? Between two and six times as bright as it is now. (We hope. Comets are fickle.) On Sunday night, the comet will be inContinue reading “See Comet Lemmon at its brightest”

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During the past week, you had to get up before morning twilight to spot Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon). And you still can. But thanks to its position in the north, now you also can see it in the evening sky. The comet is currently passing in front of the stars of the constellation Canes VenaticiContinue reading “Now’s the time to see Comet Lemmon”

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The Moon may seem like a lifeless, unchanging world, but new research reveals it’s more geologically active than previously understood. A team of Chinese scientists has identified 41 new landslides on the lunar surface that formed since 2009, concluding they were most likely triggered by seismic activity. This discovery has significant implications for our understandingContinue reading “Moonquakes are the primary trigger for lunar landslides, study finds”

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  October 12: The Saturn Nebula shines Last Quarter Moon occurs this afternoon at 2:13 P.M. EDT. A few hours later, the Moon passes 4° north of Jupiter at 6 P.M. EDT. The pair rises around midnight and are visible into the early-morningContinue reading “The Sky Today on Monday, October 13: The Moon reaches Last Quarter”

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  October 11: Io and Europa cross Jupiter Now that spooky season is upon us, let’s chase some cosmic ghosts. Tonight we’re seeking the Saturn Nebula (NGC 7009), a planetary nebula that, as its name implies, looks like a ghostly version of theContinue reading “The Sky Today on Sunday, October 12: The Saturn Nebula shines”

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  October 10: Spot Ceres in Cetus Last week, Io and Europa took a trip together across Jupiter, transiting the planet with their shadows. The moons’ resonant orbits mean similar events often repeat, and this morning is your chance to catch another one. Continue reading “The Sky Today on Saturday, October 11: Io and Europa cross Jupiter”

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Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  1 Ceres is passing close to the 5th-magnitude star Phi2 (φ2) Ceti this evening. Viewing will be best about two hours after sunset, after the sky has grown dark but shortly before the Moon rises. At that time, Ceres will be about 15°Continue reading “The Sky Today on Friday, October 10: Spot Ceres in Cetus”

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Todd Bossaller from Marshall, Missouri A disconnection event is when the ion tail of a comet appears to briefly become detached from its nucleus due to turbulence in the solar wind. Comet Lemmon (C/2025 A6) experienced one such event on the morning of Oc. 9, captured here with a 4-inch scope at f/5 and 30Continue reading “Lemmon’s tail disconnects”

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Let’s visit Venus in the early-morning sky; the bright planet rises around 5 A.M. local daylight time and stands nearly 10° high in the east an hour later. Blazing at magnitude –3.9, it’s unmissable in far eastern Leo; it will cross into western Virgo by tomorrow morning.  Venus is stunning through binoculars or any telescope;Continue reading “The Sky Today on Wednesday, October 8: Venus’ last day in Leo”

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Step outside tonight in the early evening, when Sagittarius lies above the southwestern horizon. Globular cluster M22 shines brightly at magnitude 5.1, readily observable with binoculars or any size telescope. It’s far from the Full Moon, increasing your chances of a good view tonight.  You can find this ancient ball of stars some 2.5° northeastContinue reading “The Sky Today on Tuesday, October 7: View the ancient stars of M22”

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Full Moon occurs late tonight at 11:48 P.M. EDT. October’s Full Moon is traditionally called the Hunter’s Moon. But this October’s Full Moon also has two other names: It is both a Super Moon and the 2025 Harvest Moon.  A Super Moon occurs when the Full phase coincides with the Moon reaching (or close to)Continue reading “The Sky Today on Monday, October 6: The Full Harvest Super Moon shines”

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What does the next generation of martian exploration look like? The answer, quite literally, is blowing in the wind. The Tumbleweed Mars rover, a spherical robot designed to roll across the martian surface, driven by the martian wind, has passed crucial technical tests, validating its potential for low-cost, large-scale exploration. The concept, developed by TeamContinue reading “The wind-driven future of Mars exploration”

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Before you set your telescope up next time, read through the four following items. I hope one or more of them will help you get more from your session. Finding the Sun You’ve placed your solar filter on the front of your telescope and want to point it at the Sun, but you’re not certainContinue reading “Michael’s Miscellany: More observing tips”

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I’ll never forget the first elementary school trip I took to my local planetarium. Looking back on it today, it feels like a distinctly analog experience. As the lights dimmed and went out, the deep darkness drew gasps from my classmates, followed by cheers as the stars appeared. At the end of the show, asContinue reading “Celebrate 100 years of planetariums this week with the IAU”

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Imran Badr from San Jose, California The supernova remnant SNR G65.3+5.7 in Cygnus is comparable in size to its well-known neighbor, the Veil Nebula — but is much fainter. The object’s brightest component is cataloged as Sharpless 2–91. This four-panel mosaic of the full remnant comprises 169⅓ hours of Hα/OIII/RGB data with a 2.4-inch astrographContinue reading “The fainter Veil”

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Mark Johnston from Scottsdale, Arizona This vortex of plasma above the Sun is caused by the twisting of our star’s magnetic field, along which hot glowing plasma forms. The imager captured this with a 6-inch scope and Hα etalon filter.

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I was fortunate to have known American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto. In fact, when I lived in El Paso, Texas, in the 1990s, I frequently visited him at his home, which was not far away in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Sometimes, I’d stay after sunset and observe with him using his homemadeContinue reading “Michael’s Miscellany: Historical observing”

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A study of Saturn’s atmospheric structure using data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revealed complex and mysterious features unseen before on any planet. The results were presented last week by Tom Stallard of Northumbria University, at the EPSC-DPS2025 Joint Meeting in Helsinki and was published in Geophysical Research Letters. “This opportunity to useContinue reading “JWST discovers new features in Saturn’s atmosphere”

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In this episode, Astronomy magazine Editor Emeritus Dave Eicher invites you to head out in the evening and point a telescope at one of the sky’s finest planetary nebulae. This one’s number 27 on Charles Messier’s famous list, but it’s usually called the Dumbbell Nebula because of it characteristic shape. Use a star chart to locate theContinue reading “This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher: The Dumbbell Nebula”

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