Cosmic Perspectives from Amid the Stars:
Astronomy Blog

In some parts of the world on August 12, 2026, day will temporarily turn to night as the Moon passes in front of the Sun, blocking its light during a rare solar eclipse. Throughout history, solar eclipses have been viewed with a unique combination of awe and fear. As wonderful a spectacle as they are, equally interesting is the science behind them and the series of coincidences that allow them to exist.

We live in a universe that is 13.8 billion years old. But how much longer does it have left? And how will the universe meet its ultimate end? We can’t yet know for sure how the universe will end, but we can use our current understanding of the cosmos to predict what might happen.

The exoplanet LHS 1140 b was first discovered in 2017. It was immediately a planet of note because it orbited within its star’s habitable zone—just the right distance from the star to potentially support liquid water on its surface. Nearly 10 years later, LHS 1140 b has become the center of a massive milestone in the search for life on exoplanets, thanks to a discovery announced July 16, 2026.

Nothing in stargazing quite beats the experience of spotting a shooting star. For just the briefest of moments, a bright light streaks across the sky in a dazzling display. With the Perseids Meteor Shower starting this week on July 17 and lasting until August 24 it’s a great time to go hunting for shooting stars.

Take a look into the early evening sky any night this summer, and you’ll see a bright light over the western horizon, just above where the sun set. It looks like an incredibly bright star, but it’s actually the planet Venus. Venus has often been called Earth’s sister planet. It’s a rocky planet with about the same size and mass, as well as being the closest planet to Earth, but the similarities end there. Venus is actually about as different from Earth as a rocky planet can g

The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory was launched in 2004 in order to study highly energetic events known as gamma-ray bursts. While it was originally planned to operate for a two-year mission, it has continued to function to this day. But if left as is, that won’t be the case for long. The telescope orbiting Earth is slowly falling back down, and without intervention, it will reenter the atmosphere before the end of 2026. But not if NASA has something to say about it.

Ever since Galileo pointed his telescope to the sky in 1609, telescopes have slowly revealed the universe to us. Over time, the telescopes got better, and so did the views they provided. But we started to hit a point of diminishing returns. As powerful as telescopes were getting, factors that seemed inescapable on Earth got more and more in the way. There was one clear solution: make a telescope that’s not on Earth.

In less than a week, on Sunday, June 21, summer will begin, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. But in the south, it will actually be the start of winter. Just how is it possible that two different places on the same planet could be experiencing different seasons at the same time?

According to our best estimates, the universe is 13.8 billion years old. It goes without saying that that’s extremely old. But just how long of a time is 14 billion years? The human mind has a way of underestimating massive numbers. So, to truly understand the implications of a nearly 14-billion-year-old universe, we need a scale model. Famous astronomer and science communicator Carl Sagan introduced the concept of the cosmic calendar for exactly this reason.

On Saturday, May 30th, at 2:06 p.m. EDT, people across New England reported hearing two consecutive explosions strong enough to rattle buildings. The source was actually a meteor—a rock falling from outer space.

The International Space Station is a home above home for astronauts. The record-breaking space station has been permanently crewed for over a quarter-century and is a hub of science, essentially acting as a zero-gravity laboratory. But beyond that, the ISS is a symbol of international cooperation and unity.

"The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself." -Carl Sagan When Carl Sagan delivered his famous quote on his TV series “Cosmos,” he wasn’t just being poetic; he was making a literal statement. We are literally made of material that comes from stars. But how? Let’s dive into the meaning of this famous quote.

In the late nineteenth century, astronomers believed they had discovered canals on Mars. These obviously artificial structures had to be the work of a civilization on the Red Planet. The idea was so popular that it even influenced H.G. Wells to write The War of the Worlds. The idea that there was life on Mars entered the mainstream mind. However, later observations with better telescopes proved there were no such artificial structures on Mars. It was simply an optical illusio

One of the most iconic scenes in Star Wars is the famous twin sunset over Tatooine, a desert planet that orbits not one, but two stars. Science fiction often takes creative liberties with its fantastic planets, but what about this one? Can a planet really have two suns?

Ask any number of people what the single most important tool in astronomy is, and almost universally, they will claim the telescope as their answer. With telescopes, we’ve been able to peer beyond our world and out into the distant reaches of the universe. The name literally means far-seeing. How is it that these rather simple contraptions are able to show us so much? How do telescopes work?

Everything you can see and touch is made up of matter. Matter is a fundamental building block of the universe. But, somehow, 85% of it is missing. When we look at all the stars, planets, asteroids, and more in a galaxy, we can calculate its total mass. But mass is the source of gravity. And when we measure the gravitational effects of that same galaxy, we get an entirely different mass. The two methods of determining the mass of a galaxy are at odds with one another.

How likely is it that there are intelligent civilizations out there beyond our Solar System? This is the question that Frank Drake asked in 1961 when he came up with the eponymous Drake Equation. In the search for extraterrestrial life, finding an intelligent civilization that we might even be able to communicate with is the gold standard. We might not have found any yet, but given our knowledge of how the universe works, we should be able to predict how common or rare they a

Artemis II brought humanity farther than it's ever traveled before. Along the way they collected a vast array of stunning imagery of not only the Moon, but Earth and space as well. Join me as we explore my favorite of the best images from the Artemis II mission and break down any interesting science behind the photos.

Apollo 13 was supposed to be NASA’s third time landing a crew on the Moon. Instead, it turned into a mission of survival that became one of the most intense chapters in the history of human space flight. An explosion in the oxygen tank put the fate of the mission and its crew in peril. Along the way on their mission to return home safely, the crew of Apollo 13 became the humans to travel farthest from Earth, a record that stood until April 6, 2026, when the crew of Artemis II

The true size of the universe boggles the mind. It’s so large that it is simply impossible to truly grasp its size. Even light, which travels faster than anything else, takes time to travel through space. For light, it’s eight minutes from the Sun to Earth, four years to the closest star, and a hundred thousand years to cross the Milky Way. To truly appreciate these vast distances, a scale model is necessary.