Daphnis and the Rings of Saturn
3.11.2019

What's happening to the rings of Saturn? A little moon making big waves. The moon is 8-kilometer Daphnis and it is making waves in the Keeler Gap of Saturn's rings using just its gravity -- as it bobs up and down, in and out.

Epsilon Tauri: Star with Planet
26.01.2024

Epsilon Tauri lies 146 light-years away. A K-type red giant star, epsilon Tau is cooler than the Sun, but with about 13 times the solar radius it has nearly 100 times the solar luminosity.

Anticrepuscular Rays at the Planet Festival
19.07.2024

For some, these subtle bands of light and shadow stretched across the sky as the Sun set on July 11. Known as anticrepuscular rays, the bands are formed as a large cloud bank near the western horizon cast long shadows through the atmosphere at sunset.

NGC 7293: The Helix Nebula
24.10.2024

A mere seven hundred light years from Earth toward the constellation Aquarius, a star is dying. The once sun-like star's last few thousand years have produced the Helix Nebula. Also known...

Meteors and Northern Lights
15.08.2002

Skygazers report that the annual Perseid meteor shower went pretty much as predicted, producing a meteor every few minutes during the dark early morning hours of August 12 and 13. And as the constellation...

The Brightest Star Yet Known
8.10.1997

Star light, star bright, a new brightest star has been discovered in the night. This new brightest star is so far away and so obscured by dust, however, that it took the Hubble Space Telescope to confirm it.

Sparkling Star May Indicate Galactic Composition
24.06.1998

If a star in this photograph twinkled slightly, would anyone notice? Would anyone care? Astronomers with the MACHO Collaboration noticed one such twinkle just last week, and many members of the astronomical community now care.

A Planet For Gliese 876
26.06.1998

Centered in this unremarkable, 1/4 degree wide patch of sky in the constellation Aquarius is the star Gliese 876. Gliese 876 is smaller than the Sun, only about 1/3 as massive, and too faint to be seen without a telescope. But it is known to be one of the nearest stars, only 15 light-years distant.

M39: Open Cluster in Cygnus
31.03.2004

Lying just at the limit of human perception is a picturesque starfield containing one of the larger open clusters on the northern sky. Spanning an angle larger than the Moon, M39's relatively few stars lie only about 800 light years distant toward the constellation of Cygnus.

A Time Lapse Lunar Eclipse
3.11.2004

During last week's lunar eclipse, our Moon appeared to disappear. As the Earth moved between the Moon and the Sun, the Earth's shadow fell on the moon, making it quite dark.