Stardate

More Andromeda Galaxy

A tiny star in the Andromeda galaxy may be about ...

A tiny star in the Andromeda galaxy may be about to put on a big show. Sometime soon, the star could explode as a supernova. For a few weeks or months, it could shine as bright as billions of normal stars. The star is a white dwarf — the dead core o...

Andromeda Galaxy

The Andromeda galaxy is big, bright, and close. In fact, ...

The Andromeda galaxy is big, bright, and close. In fact, it’s our nearest large galactic neighbor. That means it’s the easiest big galaxy for astronomers to study. And because of that, they may have a better understanding of some of the galaxy’s ...

Waking Up

John Dobson

John Dobson was the Julia Child of amateur astronomy. Child ...

John Dobson was the Julia Child of amateur astronomy. Child brought French cooking to a wide audience, in part by showing that you didn’t need expensive ingredients to whip up good dishes. Dobson brought skywatching to a wide audience by showing that...

Eagles

Several eagles soar across the evening sky this month. Some ...

Several eagles soar across the evening sky this month. Some of them are bright and easy to see. The other requires a telescope, but it’s quite well known. The brightest eagle is the star Vega. It stands high overhead as darkness falls, and drops dow...

Alpha Centauri Planet

Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to our own ...

Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to our own — a bit more than four light-years away. And a few years ago, it became even more intriguing when astronomers in Switzerland announced the discovery of a planet orbiting one of its stars. Since the...

Proxima Centauri Planets

If humanity ever launches a starship, the most reasonable destination ...

If humanity ever launches a starship, the most reasonable destination is the closest one: the star Proxima Centauri, which is just four-and-a-quarter light-years away. Unfortunately, though, there’s not much to see when it gets there. Proxima is a ti...

Proxima Centauri

You might expect our closest neighboring star to be one ...

You might expect our closest neighboring star to be one of the brightest lights in the night sky. Instead, though, it’s so faint that it wasn’t discovered until a century ago this month. Now known as Proxima Centauri, it’s just four-and-a-quarter...

Moon, Venus, and Mars

Modern-day Mars is bitterly cold, and drier than any desert ...

Modern-day Mars is bitterly cold, and drier than any desert here on Earth. But there’s abundant evidence that conditions were much more pleasant in the distant past. Ancient riverbeds wiggle across its surface, for example, and the Mars rovers have f...

Moon and Venus

Venus is named for the ancient goddess of love and ...

Venus is named for the ancient goddess of love and beauty. A more fitting namesake, though, might be Vulcan, the god of fire and volcanoes. The planet’s surface temperature is more than 850 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s covered with volcanic features, a...