It moved across the surface of Mars — what was it? A dust devil. Such spinning columns of rising air are heated by the warm surface and are also common […]

What was that red glow on the horizon last night? Aurora. Our unusually active Sun produced a surface explosion a few days ago that sent out a burst of electrons, […]

It was Halloween and the sky looked like a creature. Exactly which creature, the astrophotographer was unsure (but possibly you can suggest one). Exactly what caused this eerie apparition in […]

Last Wednesday the voyaging Lucy spacecraft encountered its first asteroid, 152830 Dinkinesh, and discovered the inner-main belt asteroid has a moon. From a distance of just over 400 kilometers, Lucy’s […]

That bright beacon you’ve seen rising in the east just after sunset is Jupiter. Climbing high in midnight skies, our Solar System’s ruling gas giant was at its 2023 opposition, […]

Named for the southern constellation toward which most of its galaxies can be found, the Fornax Cluster is one of the closest clusters of galaxies. About 62 million light-years away, […]

Part of the Sun disappeared earlier this month, but few people were worried. The missing part, which included the center from some locations, just went behind the Moon in what […]

What’s happened to the Moon? Within the last day, part of the Moon moved through the Earth’s shadow. This happens about once or twice a year, but not every month […]

Gamma Cassiopeiae shines high in northern autumn evening skies. It’s the brightest spiky star in this telescopic field of view toward the constellation Cassiopeia. Gamma Cas shares the ethereal-looking scene […]

History’s second known periodic comet is Comet Encke (2P/Encke). As it swings through the inner Solar System, Encke’s orbit takes it from an aphelion, its greatest distance from the Sun, […]