1+ week, 2+ hour ago   (368+ words) Astronomy Magazine Wouldn’t a free-floating planet eventually cross paths with a star or even a black hole and start revolving around it? Free-floating planets (FFPs) or rogue planets are bodies that move through space by themselves, not locked into an…...

1+ week, 6+ day ago   (672+ words) September begins with a lovely sight in the western evening sky: brilliant Venus appears just 2° to the left of Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo the Maiden. The gap between the two widens as the month progresses, with…...

1+ week, 6+ day ago   (1657+ words) Venus is the brightest object in the west after sunset, reaching its greatest illuminated extent this month. Neptune reaches opposition, with Saturn in the same region of sky. Uranus could be visible from dark skies without optical aid; we’ll tell…...

2+ week, 1+ day ago   (342+ words) Alison earned her bachelor’s degree in physics and master’s degree in earth, atmospheric, and planetary science from MIT. During this time, she completed several years of research in the field of planetary science, working on research topics that ranged from…...

2+ week, 6+ day ago   (211+ words) August 24: Iapetus at eastern elongation Charles Messier’s famous list of non-cometary objects largely contains star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies — faint fuzzies it could be easy to confuse for a cometary nucleus in a telescope of the type the comet-hunter was…...

3+ week, 7+ hour ago   (157+ words) Alison earned her bachelor’s degree in physics and master’s degree in earth, atmospheric, and planetary science from MIT. During this time, she completed several years of research in the field of planetary science, working on research topics that ranged from…...

3+ week, 2+ day ago   (221+ words) As always, our readers were there to capture the moment. Here are 14 of our favorite reader-submitted images of the 2026 solar eclipse. To jump between images, use the j/k keys or left/right arrows on your keyboard. A crescent Sun…...

3+ week, 3+ day ago   (800+ words) If the view is a bit hard to make out, just wait about a week or so — the nearby Moon’s light may be washing out the cluster’s fainter stars, which will pop out better under a darker sky. Once the…...

4+ week, 8+ hour ago   (321+ words) During a slingshot maneuver, the planet and spacecraft draw close enough together for an exchange of energy to occur. If a satellite’s velocity increases as it approaches a planet during a slingshot maneuver, why does it not decrease by the…...