As close as we astronomers love to feel to space, one thing stands between us and the outer reaches: Earth’s atmosphere. More than 60 miles (97 kilometers) of gases separate us from the cosmos, and it ...

The vernal equinox occurs at 10:46 A.M. EDT, bringing astronomical spring to the Northern Hemisphere as the Sun stands directly over Earth’s equator. On this day, the Sun also sits at the celestial ...

NASA’s Van Allen Probe A re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on Wednesday, March 11, at 6:37 a.m. EDT, marking the final chapter for a spacecraft that reshaped scientists’ understanding of the radiation ...

The Moon passes 4° north of Jupiter at 8 A.M. EDT. By evening, they are high overhead in Gemini the Twins, now nearly 8° apart as the Moon sits near Pollux, the slightly brighter of the two brothers’ ...

This article originally appeared in the March 2007 issue of Astronomy. Only one star, the Sun, lies close enough to resolve through amateur telescopes. Observing the Sun provides a superb daytime ...

In a study published today in Science, researchers say they have solved a climate enigma — the inexplicable surge in global temperature in 2023, rising faster than climate models predicted. By ...

A vertical dark band cutting through a bright nebula marks the protoplanetary disk surrounding the young star IRAS 04302+2247. Observations of such disks will help astronomers understand how small ...

Born March 21, 1866, in New York, Antonia Maury was born into a family with an astronomical legacy: Her grandfather, John William Draper, was the second person to photograph the Moon (and the first ...

This is the ideal night to run the 2026 Messier marathon. This annual event challenges observers to view every object in Charles Messier’s catalog in a single night, from sundown to sunup. According ...

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS has not disappointed — and we have the pictures now to prove it. The comet, formally known as C/2023 A3, was first discovered in January 2023 by Purple Mountain Observatory in ...

Saturn reaches opposition at 2 A.M. EDT, visible all night and offering stunning views of its rings and moons. The ringed planet now rises around sunset and is highest around local midnight, when it ...

Visible in Scotland, the total solar eclipse of Aug. 2, 1133, featured nearly 4½ minutes of totality. This eclipse provides just one of many historical examples of people wrongly associating a ...