Space News & Blog Articles

July is Scorpius season. Maybe you know of the Cat's Eyes in the Scorpion's tail, but how about the Little Cat's Eyes in the Scorpion's body? The Sagittarius Teapot follows not far behind.

Can stargazing make you a better person?

New research shows how black holes with tens of thousands of Suns' worth of mass can form in the universe's early years.

Pick one or see them all. July offers a potpourri of celestial events for both naked-eye observers and telescope users that include a rare occultation by Saturn's moon Titan, a bright comet, and Mira at maximum.

X-ray observations add to growing evidence that the most massive black holes have a different past than their lightweight peers.

Stellar mergers in quadruple systems might be common, a new study shows.

The Moon waxes across the evening sky from Leo to Scorpius. The five-planet lineup in the dawn is now four. And amateur astronomers plan to be recording as Saturn's hazy moon Titan occult a star about as bright as Titan itself for most of North America.

July offers lots of pretty stars and constellations to check out, and you’ll get a personally guided tour of them by downloading this month’s Sky Tour astronomy podcast.

Disk Detective, a citizen science project dedicated identifying planet-forming disks around young stars, reports their latest results.

The Sun isn't exactly your typical star, but its light, warmth, and overall stability has helped lead to life on Earth.

Capstone, a small pathfinder spacecraft with a big mission, launched today to pave the way for crewed return to the Moon.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission has found the impact site created March 4th. The crater might help reveal the impactor's identity.

The crescent Moon returns to the evening, crossing Leo. The five-planet lineup continues at dawn; catch it while you still can. And for skywatchers at northern latitudes, we're entering noctilucent cloud season.

Astronomers have mapped Orion in 3D to understand the origin of the large arc of Barnard’s Loop — and you can interact with the 3D image!

The Contreras wildfire has been threatening the historic Kitt Peak National Observatory in southern Arizona.

The International Dark-Sky Association’s has summarized more than 300 peer-reviewed studies on the effects of artificial light at night in an effort to help dark-sky advocates.

We'll have not one but many opportunities to enjoy a rare lineup of the bright planets over the next few weeks. Amazingly, they'll be aligned in order of their distance from the Sun.

The five naked-eye planets form a diagonal line in the dawn this week — in order of their distance from the Sun, no less. And the waning Moon visits each one in turn, day by day. The planetless evening sky features the Big Dipper hanging down, the Little Dipper floating up, Leo walking away, and the two brightest summer stars nearly straddling the zenith.

New observations show that a Mercury-like world and a comet-like object fell onto a white dwarf, indicating past orbital chaos.

New images of nearby galaxies and their surroundings reveal details in galactic formation and evolution — and puzzles that remain to be solved.

Hubble observations have revealed a stellar-mass compact object — a black hole or possibly a neutron star — wandering our galaxy.