Space News & Blog Articles

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.

Astronomers will use the newest data release from the Gaia mission to explore stellar tsunamis, Milky Way history, and more.

Changes to the design of Starlink satellite spacecraft have made them brighter again, though still dimmer than the original design.

When should we start thinking about cleaning up our space junk on Mars?

The waxing gibbous Moon shines with Spica, then occults Delta Scorpii. Meanwhile, all seven planets other than Earth are forming into a diagonal line across the east to southeast at dawn.

NASA’s Perseverance rover is recording the windy weather in Jezero Crater, chronicling its role in making the Red Planet dusty.

A new source of fast radio bursts raises questions about how much we really know about these mysterious flares.

We touch on the highlights of the memorable Tau Herculid meteor shower and also report on the recent outburst of the recurrent nova U Scorpii.

The Moon is our most obvious and immediate celestial companion. For many stargazers, the Moon was our first astronomical love.

For three nights running, the waxing Moon will pose equidistant from the two brightest stars of Leo. The Cassiopeia W lies exactly level in the north. And for that to happen, Kochab has to be straight above Polaris.

Under the right conditions, stars could become immortal. How is this possible, and what does it mean for these stars’ surroundings?

Download this month's Sky Tour podcast to find out where and when to spot a rare alignment of five planets in the sky before dawn.

All five naked-eye planets will line up in the dawn sky in June. Not only that, they’ll also be in their proper order from the Sun.

Meet Denebola, the tail of Leo, the Lion. This young star is a fast rotater but otherwise not that different from our Sun.

The crescent Moon passes Pollux and Castor in the western twilight. Jupiter aligns with Mars in the dawn, then they edge apart. And a strong new meteor shower will either happen or it won't!

Will there be a new meteor shower on the night of May 30–31? There's only one way to find out.

Astronomers think they might have a solution to the conundrum of the Sun's chemical composition.

Unlike most asterisms, many of the Big Dipper's stars really are physically connected. They belong to a loosely bound stellar stream called the Ursa Major Moving Cluster.