SkyCaramba

Venus moves into the morning. Jupiter and Uranus rise in late evening. Saturn's almost at opposition. Mercury and Mars barely grace the evening sky. And the moon passes in front of the reddish star Antares in an event reminiscent of the moon-Mars occultation in December.

Leo dives into the sunset. Mercury and Mars finish their pairing nearby. Saturn continues approaching opposition. Jupiter rises earlier. And Venus transitions to morning. The moon will soon occult Antares. Two galaxies--one of them the one we live in--will merge in a few billion years. What will we call the new amalgamation? Will people even be around to call it anything? A lonely star in the sout...

Different planets axes point at different north and south celestial poles. Find out where the north and south stars are on bodies other than Earth. Venus heads toward inferior conjunction. Mercury and Mars tickle Leo's belly. Saturn rises earlier heading toward opposition. The Perseid meteor shower will peak soon.

Two meteor showers peak early this week. Evening planet watching's getting hard. Saturn's approaching opposition. And what's with that face on Mars?

Two meteor showers peak at the end of this month. And it's not too early to start looking for one shower that peaks next month. Three planets gang up on the lion. Saturn rises in late evening on its way to opposition next month. Jupiter and Uranus remain near the sea monster.

Mars, Venus, and Mercury are evening objects near Regulus this week. Saturn's close to Sigma Aquarii. Jupiter and Uranus rise in the morning. Pluto's up all night. It's hard to see. Its five moons are even harder to see. Mathematics helped prove--at least to some people--that the first known Plutonian moon exists. It certainly wasn't distinct in the first pictures.

Lots of things to talk about this week: Mercury becomes an evening object. Mars is close to Regulus. Venus turns around. Spectroscopic binaries. The moon passes Saturn and Jupiter. Solstice on Mars. The summer triangle. Star-crossed lovers.

The first of four so-called supermoons is this week. The reason for tides maybe isn't exactly as you've heard. Mercury is missing from the night sky. Mars and Venus are by Regulus in the heart of the lion. Earth is at its farthest from the sun.

Do scorpions have foreheads? The one on the celestial dome does, at least according to one of the star names. What looks like one star in the scorpion is actually six! Venus pursues Mars in the evening sky. Mercury's at perihelion and heading toward conjunction with the sun.

The June solstice is this week. A Greek mathematician observed shadows during the solstice, had people make measurements, ran some calculations, and came up with the first known estimate of how big around the earth is. Venus follows Mars in the space between Cancer and Leo in the evening sky. Saturn stays in Aquarius in the second half of the night. Jupiter's up at dawn.

The story of Apollo taking out his wrath on a servant bird, a bowl, and an innocent water snake is remembered in our modern constellations. But modern astronomers call the snake by the wrong name. It's Venus's turn to pass through the Beehive Cluster this week. The planet is following Mars in the evening sky. The moon passes Jupiter in the morning. And if you can see Mercury in the morning...

A meteor shower you might catch part of at dawn peaks this week. For the most part, it's a daytime event. Even though you don't get to see most of the meteors--up to 60 per hour--you might be able to detect them by listening to the radio! A far south full moon, Mars marching out of the Beehive and Venus heading toward it, and Mercury in the morning are among the other things to know about...

Mercury and Venus are approaching their greatest elongations--Mercury in the morning and Venus in the evening. That's when they're farthest from the sun in the sky and can be seen most easily. The two planets are also predicted to be at dichotomy around June 4. But an unexplained phenomenon is likely to make one appear to be in its semi-circle phase around the middle of this week and the other aro...

The moon passes by Venus and Mars. The moon goes through northern lunistice. Saturn rules the morning while Jupiter creeps in and Mercury tries. A Cambridge University student worked for two years helping build a radio signal detecting apparatus. She spent hours poring over the data it produced. And after she discovered the first known pulsar, two other people got a Nobel prize for it. Find out ho...

Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn are our morning planets. Venus and Mars are in the evening with Venus passing very close to Mebsuta. And hey, the sun emits radio waves. James Stanley Hey figured that out in World War II. But he couldn't talk about it for a few years. This is part two in the series on unexpected discoveries that advanced radio astronomy.

Mars and Venus straddle Gemini. The moon goes as far south as it can this month. Saturn and Jupiter greet us in the morning. Uranus goes through conjunction while Mercury emerges from it. Scientists tried for a few decades to detect radio waves from outer space. Their crude equipment didn't find any. After the discovery of the ionosphere, some concluded that radio astronomy would never be poss...

This week's full moon comes with a penumbral eclipse. Mercury goes through inferior conjunction. The Eta Aquariid meteor shower peaks. Watch Venus and Mars continue a dual reign in the evening sky. Jupiter and Saturn share the morning.

Vanishing Mercury. The moon and Venus. Mars by Pollux. Saturn in the morning. And still no Jupiter. Virgo is a constellation of many identities. Just who she is depends on who's telling you. Astronomy Day is this week.

Mercury sinks sunward. Uranus goes with it. Venus plows past the Pleiades. Mars in Gemini. A Saturn-moon pairing. Jupiter still too close to the sun to see. A reminder about the hybrid solar eclipse. And a comet that last came close to the sun in 1861 provides the annual meteor shower called the April Lyrids. The shower peaks at the end of this week.

Mercury at greatest elongation with Uranus nearby. Venus slides by the Pleiades. Mars makes way through Gemini. Saturn stays in Aquarius. Jupiter greets the sun. Last quarter moon. A hybrid solar eclipse--annular in some places, total in others--happens next week. Learn why it's that way and where you can see it.

Mercury marches into the evening. Venus approaches the Pleiades. Jupiter heads toward the sun. Full moon. Do what you can to preserve dark skies. Light pollution isn't just ruining astronomy. It's bad for nature.

The James Webb Space Telescope captured an image of Neptune that some describe as ghostly. A chemical compound detected near the center of the Milky Way galaxy is partly responsible for a fruit's taste. Jupiter disappears into the sunset and has a close call with Mercury along the way. Venus passes by Uranus. Mars passes by Castor's feet.

Mercury joins Jupiter and Venus in the evening. Equinox is this week. The sun isn't entering Aries now, no matter what you've been told. A daytime occultation of Venus. And Ceres is at opposition.

Venus dominates the early evening. Mars remains up until around midnight. Jupiter and Vesta are close. Mercury's at superior conjunction. The anniversary of the first detailed picture of the moon is coming up. That was more than 180 years ago.

Mercury's already in retreat in the morning. Venus marches more into the evening. There's still time to see Jupiter while it begins a long goodbye to the evening sky. And learn what is meant by the different ways of measuring how close two objects are when they're in conjunction.