For those well north of the equator, January’s long nights provide lots of time to enjoy the starry sky — and the stars of winter are spectacular! This month’s celestial highlights include a close pass of Saturn and Venus, a strong meteor shower, and much more. Our fun and factual Sky Tour podcast provides all the details.
Venus creeps up, Saturn sinks down; in three weeks the two shall meet. The Moon meets Mars. Orion comes into his own to rule the winter, and Sirius emerges below him.
NASA's groundbreaking Insight lander on Mars has fallen silent.
The James Webb Space Telescope leads our list of the top news stories of the year. See what else made the Top 10!
New data from a detector tucked under a mountain in Italy has shed light on what's inside the Sun.
The two richest, most reliable annual meteor showers, the Perseids and Geminids, are Moon-free in 2023. Others showers await you too.
How to start out right with a new telescope — a guide to what you need to know, how to set it up, and things you can start finding with it in tonight's sky.
Venus and Mercury glimmer low in the southwest in twilight. The newborn crescent Moon starts the week with them, then visits Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars as it fills out toward full.
The James Webb Space Telescope's early-release image of the Cosmic Cliffs is revealing growth spurts in young stars.
Echoing summer's great arc of planets at dawn, winter presents the full octet again, this time splayed across the evening sky.
When spacetime shivers last only a fraction of a second — as in the case of the massive-black-hole merger GW190521 — astronomers struggle to uncover their origins.
A new deep field from the James Webb Space Telescope shows how galaxies evolved in the early universe.
The Pleiades dipper, the House in the Hyades, Mars high but fading, M31 at the zenith, and a celestial string of holiday lights.
Spectroscopic measurements confirm Webb's distance record, with images revealing galaxies that existed just 330 million years after the Big Bang.
The Perseverance rover on Mars has recorded a dust devil using its microphone, providing unprecedented data about these whirlwinds.
The luminous Geminid meteor shower returns. We also meet a binocular-bright star that may be experiencing Betelgeuse-like convulsions.
That’s one small change in an asteroid’s orbit, one giant leap for humanity.
NASA’s Lunar Flashlight, iSpace’s Hakuto R from Japan, and the United Arab Emirates' Rashid rover are all headed to the Moon after launching aboard a SpaceX rocket.
Redevelopment plans could threaten the site that houses the Holmdel Horn, the instrument responsible for hearing the "hiss" of background radiation from the Big Bang.
Mars, just past opposition, remains bright as it aligns between Aldebaran and Capella. Jupiter shines highest after dusk. And watch for the Geminid meteors.
Sky & Telescope editors report their observations of last night's celestial event: Mars grazing or disappearing behind the Moon.
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