Stardate

Blood Harvest Super Moon

Thanks to an astronomical coincidence, you can expect every TV ...

Thanks to an astronomical coincidence, you can expect every TV meteorologist in America to go a bit gaga about the Moon tonight. That’s because it’s the Bloody Harvest Super Moon. The Harvest Moon designation comes from its place in the calendar: ...

Lunar Eclipse

Earth, Moon, and Sun are about to achieve syzygy — ...

Earth, Moon, and Sun are about to achieve syzygy — a near-perfect alignment. The full Moon will pass through Earth’s long shadow tomorrow night, creating a total lunar eclipse. Like any object that’s standing in the sunlight, Earth casts a shado...

Weekend Goodies

This is quite a weekend for stargazing. The two brightest ...

This is quite a weekend for stargazing. The two brightest pinpoints of light in the night sky congregate in the east before dawn, sandwiching a couple of fainter lights between them. And there’s a total eclipse on Sunday night — an eclipse of the H...

Morning Lineup

There’s an impressive lineup in the eastern sky at dawn ...

There’s an impressive lineup in the eastern sky at dawn tomorrow. Mars snuggles quite close to the star Regulus, while two brighter lights look on. Mars and Regulus stand side by side, low in the east about an hour before sunrise. Mars is to the lef...

Dabih

Thinking about the orbital motions of the star system known ...

Thinking about the orbital motions of the star system known as Dabih is enough to make you dizzy. It consists of at least five stars, all orbiting each other in various configurations. In fact, one pair of stars has three different orbital motions. Da...

September Equinox

If your family has school-age children, then the fall semester ...

If your family has school-age children, then the fall semester began anywhere from a few days to a few weeks ago. And if you’re in more northerly parts of the country, the weather may have felt like fall for a few days or weeks as well. But astronom...

Fomalhaut

After a spectacular encounter with Pluto back in July, the ...

After a spectacular encounter with Pluto back in July, the New Horizons spacecraft will be directed toward a new target later this year. Like Pluto, the new target will be a member of the Kuiper Belt — a wide band of iceballs beyond the orbit of Nept...

North vs. South

Moon and Antares

In the modern world, it’s almost impossible to not know ...

In the modern world, it’s almost impossible to not know the correct time. GPS satellites transmit the current time to phones, wristwatches, cars, and just about everything and everywhere else. Before the invention of mechanical clocks, though, peopl...

Moon and Saturn

The giant planet Saturn has a giant entourage of moons. ...

The giant planet Saturn has a giant entourage of moons. More than 50 are known, with perhaps more awaiting discovery. The biggest of them all is Titan, a world with a dense, cold atmosphere and lakes of liquid hydrocarbons on its surface. Another big m...