Cosmic Perspectives from Amid the Stars:
Astronomy Blog

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.

Today, March 24, 2026, NASA announced Space Reactor-1 Freedom, a nuclear-powered spacecraft that’s planned to travel to Mars as early as 2028. Freedom would be the first nuclear-propelled craft to venture beyond Earth orbit and it could be the future of exploration in our Solar System. Traveling to planets beyond our own is a tricky prospect. There’s a reason that humans have never traveled further from Earth than the Moon. But Mars is on the top of our list for places to se

The universe encompasses everything we know to exist. Time itself only has meaning within the universe. It’s impossible to imagine that the universe may have once not existed at all, and yet, that’s the current consensus among cosmologists. The Big Bang is the most widely accepted theory for how the universe began.

The Space Race was the Cold War competition between the United States and the Soviet Union to achieve superior space travel technology, which eventually culminated in the first manned Moon landing and potentially contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Even today, our space programs are built upon the base established during the period. But why was the Space Race so important to both nations, and who ended up winning it?

The solar eclipse is the well-known event when the Moon passes between the Earth and Sun, blocking the Sun from view. Less known is the lunar eclipse, where the Earth passes between the Sun and Moon, blocking the light of the Sun that usually reflects off the Moon. The morning of March 3, 2026, at around 3:00 am PST, will provide this special show of celestial alignment.

Social media is buzzing with news of a so-called “planet parade” on Saturday, February 28. But before you get your hopes up, let’s separate the astronomical reality from the viral hype.

You might have heard before that the nearest star is 4.24 light-years from Earth. Or that the closest galaxy is 2.5 million light-years from the Milky Way. Or even that the most distant observed objects are 33.8 billion light-years away. But how do we measure these distances in space? After all, there’s no such thing as a cosmic ruler. That’s where the cosmic distance ladder comes in.