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Summer Triangle in northern autumn Bruce McClure in TONIGHT | 26 November 2019 In late November and early December, look west in the evening for the Summer Triangle. It’s the signature star formation of our Northern Hemisphere summer, but you can see it in northern autumn, too. The Summer...

Astronomy Picture of the Day NASA Release | 24 November 2019 Apollo 12: Self-Portrait Image Credit: NASA, Apollo 12, Charles Conrad Is this image art? 50 years ago, Apollo 12 astronaut-photographer Charles "Pete" Conrad recorded this masterpiece while documenting colleague Alan Bean's...

Mystery object over Polk County: Plane, meteor or contrail? KOIN 6 | 22 November 2019 No one is sure what fell from the sky over Polk County on Thursday. _______________________________ There were reports from the US and Canada of similar fireballs. They coincide with the meteor shower...

Spectacular! Don’t miss Venus and Jupiter Bruce McClure in TONIGHT | November 22, 2019 Wow! The sky’s two brightest planets – Venus and Jupiter – are now drawing closer together in the west after sunset. A conjunction between the two planets will happen on November 24, 2019. Venus, the...

Brief but potent meteor outburst expected November 21-22 Deborah Byrd in ASTRONOMY ESSENTIALS | November 17, 2019 Exciting news! Some lucky observers may catch a brief outburst of alpha Monocerotid meteors this Thursday night (or Friday morning). And we do mean brief. Peak activity – a rate of...

SDO caught the Mercury transit from space Deborah Byrd in SPACE | November 12, 2019 Wow! Check out these space-based views of the Mercury transit from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) had a ringside seat on Monday, November 11, 2019, as Mercury...

Hubble captures a dozen galaxy doppelgangers Eleanor Imster in SPACE | November 13, 2019 The distant galaxy in this image is nicknamed the Sunburst Arc. It’s been lensed into multiple images by a massive, intervening galaxy cluster. A recent study revealed that the 4 bright arcs in this Hubble...

Astronomy Picture of the Day NASA Release | 11 November 2019 The history of the Moon is partly written in its craters. Pictured here is a lunar panorama taken from Earth featuring the large craters Langrenus, toward the left, and Petavius, toward the right. The craters formed in separate...

Did ancient Earth life escape our solar system? Paul Scott Anderson in EARTH | SPACE | November 10, 2019 You’ve heard of panspermia, the idea that life exists throughout space and was carried to Earth by comets? What if the reverse occurred, with microbes on Earth ejected into space by asteroid...

TESS watched a black hole tear apart a star Eleanor Imster in SPACE | November 7, 2019 TESS watched a black hole tear apart a star from start to finish, a cataclysmic phenomenon called a tidal disruption event. When a star strays too close to a black hole, intense tides break it apart into a...

TESS planet-hunter shows you the southern sky Eleanor Imster in SPACE | TODAY'S IMAGE | November 6, 2019 Mosaic of the southern sky constructed from 208 images by NASA’s TESS spacecraft, taken during the mission’s first year of science operations. http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=P3KevBr4go4...

First results: Voyager 2's recent pass into interstellar space Erika K. Carlson | Monday, November 4, 2019 NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft crossed into interstellar space last November. Now, one year later, scientists have published the first results. Voyager 2 passes into interstellar space...

Mobile app to provide the latest on black hole collisions and merging neutron stars University of Birmingham, PHYS.ORG | 1 November 2019 PhD students from the Institute for Gravitational Wave Astronomy have released a new app to encourage members of the public to stay up to date with new...

Small asteroid paid a heavy price for almost striking Earth Thursday Deborah Byrd in SPACE | November 1, 2019 Earth’s gravity bent the trajectory of asteroid C0PPEV1 – also known as 2019 UN13 – as it swept only 3,852 miles (6,200 km) above Africa. As a result, its farthest point from the sun...

Astronomy Picture of the Day NASA Release | 1 November 2019 The Ghostly Veil Nebula Image Credit & Copyright: Anis Abdul A ghostly visage on a cosmic scale, these remains of shocked, glowing gas haunt planet Earth's sky toward the constellation of Cygnus and form the Veil Nebula. The...

Halloween ghost of the summer sun Bruce McClure in Astronomy Essentials | October 30, 2019 At mid-northern latitudes, the star Arcturus sets about 2 hours after sunset around Halloween. It sets at the same point on the horizon as the summer sun. It’s a Halloween ghost of the summer sun and an...

Putting the ‘bang’ in Big Bang Deborah Byrd in SPACE | October 29, 2019 Physicists have pondered how the cold, uniform matter of the inflationary early universe became the ultrahot, complex mixture of matter, space and time that led to the universe we know. New work simulates a bridge between...

Asteroid to sweep between moon and Earth tonight: How to watch online Gianluca Masi in ASTRONOMY ESSENTIALS | October 28, 2019 Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project in Rome said he just managed to capture an image of a small asteroid – labeled 2019 UB8 – coming very close on October...

Astronomy Picture of the Day NASA Release | 27 October 2019 Dark Seahorse in Cepheus Image Credit & Copyright: Sergio Kaminsky Light-years across, this suggestive shape known as the Seahorse Nebula appears in silhouette against a rich, luminous background of stars. Seen toward the royal...