Sky & Telescope Magazine

This month’s episode highlights the close pairing of Venus and Jupiter under way in the western sky after sunset. You'll also learn why astronomers are fixated on a star in Corona Borealis — and how to find a huge but dim constellation that will likely be new to you. So grab curiosity and come along on this month’s Sky Tour.

The post June Podcast: Dance of the Planets appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Rovers, drones, and landers will usher in a sustained lunar presence, under the new plan NASA announced this week.

The post NASA Brings Its Lunar Ambitions into Focus with Moon Base Missions appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Reanalysis shows that the Hubble Space Telescope's detection of water vapor escaping from Jupiter’s moon Europa might have been a glitch.

The post Evidence of Water Plumes from Jupiter's Moon Europa Vanishes appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Venus and Jupiter grab your eyes in the west in late twilight. The Summer Triangle marks the dark in the east. So will the subtler Milky Way once the glary Moon is gone.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, May 29 – June 7 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The two brightest planets in our sky will be less than 2 degrees apart on June 9th at sunset.

The post Close Encounter: Jupiter and Venus appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

I share my "discovery" of a new Milky Way star cloud that's been staring at me for ages.

The post Lost in the Star Clouds — A Milky Way Odyssey appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

NASA’s Psyche asteroid mission made a course adjustment via a flyby past Mars en route to its final destination. Here's what it saw.

The post NASA's Psyche Sends Back Amazing Images of Mars appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Venus and Jupiter — the Evening Star and the False Evening Star — draw closer together in the western twilight and point down to Mercury. The waxing Moon shows off its rich telescopic detail.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, May 22 – 31 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

New research suggests that Triton — or a Triton-like object — might have disrupted Neptune's original moon system. Nereid might be the sole survivor.

The post Nereid Could be Neptune’s Only Original Moon appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

For most of human history, the sky was not something we studied — it was something we lived with.

The post Stonehenge and the Geometry of the Sky appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

A new model explains how Ganymede got its molten core — which in turn has given Jupiter's largest moon its magnetic field.

The post How Jupiter’s Moon Ganymede Melted Its Core appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

An innovative new mission will probe the mystery of how the Earth’s magnetosphere interacts with the solar wind.

The post SMILE: European Space Weather Mission Launches appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Astronomers have identified the likely source of gas that flows into the maw of the Milky Way’s central black hole, Sagittarius A*.

The post What's Feeding Our Supermassive Black Hole? appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The Moon, Venus, and Jupiter — the three brightest celestial objects after the Sun — will form up beautifully in twilight this Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, May 15 – 24 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

A planetary odd couple — a mini-Neptune and a hot Jupiter — probably formed much farther away from their star before migrating closer in.

The post How Did This Peculiar Planet Pair Form? appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Two objects that appeared to be galaxies residing in a universe about 150 million years old turn out to be brown dwarfs in the Milky Way.

The post Webb Telescope Reveals Brown Dwarfs Masquerading as Early Galaxies appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Watch the crescent Moon dance with the planets when it returns next week.

The post Moon and Planets to Gather in Twilight Spectacle on May 18–20 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

In 2019, a supermassive black hole in a galaxy 300 million light-years away woke up. Now, it’s puzzling astronomers with an unexpected slowdown in its X-ray bursts.

The post A Black Hole’s Puzzling X-Ray Bursts appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Jupiter, shining high the western dusk, inches down day toward brighter Venus. Venus, meanwhile, creeps toward the horntip stars of Taurus and stands between them on May 13th.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, May 8 – 17 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The imminent lunar impact of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket booster highlights the growing amount of space debris near the Moon.

The post SpaceX Booster Will Hit the Moon This August appeared first on Sky & Telescope.