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Astronomy

All articles tagged with #astronomy

Colorado Ready for a Red-Hued Lunar Eclipse Tonight
science1 hour ago

Colorado Ready for a Red-Hued Lunar Eclipse Tonight

Colorado will experience a near-total lunar eclipse Thursday night, turning the Moon a reddish hue; the eclipse begins around 8:30 p.m. and lasts until 1 a.m., with peak visibility between 9:45 and 10:45 p.m. and about 92–95% of the Moon in Earth's shadow. Most of the state should have a good view, though southern areas face higher cloud risk; for best results, seek darker skies away from city lights, and be ready to drive a bit for patches of clearer sky—telescopes or binoculars can help, but the naked eye should still deliver a striking show.

via The Colorado Sun|
#astronomy#blood-moon#colorado
Roman Space Telescope to map the cosmos and hunt for new worlds
space1 hour ago

Roman Space Telescope to map the cosmos and hunt for new worlds

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is set to launch from Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, delivering a wide-field view at least 100 times larger than Hubble to map billions of galaxies and stars, search for thousands of exoplanets, and study dark matter and dark energy, generating about 1.4 terabytes of data per day; first images come after a three-month commissioning, and once science operations begin the data will be publicly available.

via WRAL|
#astronomy#cosmology#dark-energy
Sturgeon Moon Meets Near-Total Lunar Eclipse: How to Watch This Week
science-space9 hours ago

Sturgeon Moon Meets Near-Total Lunar Eclipse: How to Watch This Week

August’s full sturgeon moon will align with a near-total partial lunar eclipse, with Earth’s shadow covering about 96% of the Moon. The eclipse begins at 10:34 p.m. ET Thursday and peaks around 12:13 a.m. ET Friday, while the full Moon reaches its maximum at 12:18 a.m. ET. Observers across North and South America can see most or all of it, and viewing is safe without any equipment, though the Moon’s color may be muted since only part of it is in Earth’s umbra. The sturgeon Moon name comes from Native American/North American traditions. The article also notes there are four more full moons in 2026.

via CNN|
#astronomy#full-moon#lunar-eclipse
Aug. 27–28, 2026: Deep Partial Lunar Eclipse Sparks Worldwide Skywatching
stargazing12 hours ago

Aug. 27–28, 2026: Deep Partial Lunar Eclipse Sparks Worldwide Skywatching

Space.com reports a deep partial lunar eclipse on Aug. 27–28, 2026, with up to 96.2% of the Moon’s disk entering Earth’s umbra—the deepest such event until 2028—visible across the Americas, Europe, and Africa. The maximum occurs late on eclipse night (beginning around 9:23 p.m. EDT on Aug. 27), and readers are guided to viewing tips, key timings, and multiple livestreams to watch online if skies are cloudy. The piece also covers why August’s full moon is called the Sturgeon Moon and offers photography tips for capturing the event.

via Space|
#astronomy#lunar-eclipse-2026#partial-lunar-eclipse
Space mirrors could render night skies daylight, study warns
space17 hours ago

Space mirrors could render night skies daylight, study warns

A study on Reflect Orbital’s proposed sun-reflecting space mirrors finds that observers in the beam would see a light intensity up to 40 times brighter than the full Moon, with the resulting sky glow potentially wiping out stars. If 40,000 mirrors were deployed, the combined brightness could reach 10,000 times the Moon’s, extending visibility and twilight-like brightness up to tens of kilometers away and threatening astronomical observations. The company has FCC permission to test an 18-by-18-meter mirror on the EARENDIL-1 satellite, a move that has drawn objections from astronomers and environmental groups who cite insufficient environmental review and data transparency; Reflect Orbital argues many mirrors would be inactive or placed in remote locations.

via Space|
#astronomy#fcc#light-pollution
Near-Total Lunar Eclipse Lights Up the Americas Tonight
science23 hours ago

Near-Total Lunar Eclipse Lights Up the Americas Tonight

A near-total lunar eclipse will shade about 96% of the Moon as Earth’s shadow passes over it, creating a reddish “blood moon” visible across the Americas (and parts of Europe and Africa). The event runs from 9:23 p.m. ET, with deepest shading around 12:12 a.m. ET and the Moon exiting the shadow by 3:01 a.m. ET. The phenomenon is safe to view with the naked eye (and more dramatic with binoculars or a telescope). It follows a recent total solar eclipse in southern Europe; the next lunar eclipse is Feb. 20–21 and the next solar eclipse is Feb. 6, per NASA.

via NBC News|
#astronomy#blood-moon#lunar-eclipse
NASA's Roman telescope set to probe dark energy from distant orbit
science1 day ago

NASA's Roman telescope set to probe dark energy from distant orbit

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, named for the agency's early astronomy leadership, is nearly ready for launch from Kennedy Space Center and will orbit about a million miles from Earth on a wide-field survey to search for exoplanets, exploding stars, and dark-energy clues, with a five-year primary mission and potential to operate for at least a decade.

via The Washington Post|
#astronomy#dark-energy#nasa
Almost-Blood Moon: Deep Partial Lunar Eclipse Heads Your Skywatching Weekend (Aug 27–28)
stargazing2 days ago

Almost-Blood Moon: Deep Partial Lunar Eclipse Heads Your Skywatching Weekend (Aug 27–28)

Space.com is live with updates for the Aug. 27–28 deep partial lunar eclipse, where up to 96.2% of the Moon will be in Earth's umbra at maximum, likely taking on a rusty reddish hue. This is the deepest partial lunar eclipse visible until the end of 2028, with the best views expected from the Americas and viewing tips provided for skywatchers.

via Space|
#astronomy#lunar-eclipse#partial-eclipse
Star S301 races the Milky Way’s black hole at 8% lightspeed
space2 days ago

Star S301 races the Milky Way’s black hole at 8% lightspeed

Astronomers have identified S301, a faint main‑sequence star on an 8.7‑year, highly eccentric orbit around the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*, reaching speeds up to 25,000 km/s (about 0.08c) at pericenter. This motion probes relativistic effects and could reveal the spin of Sgr A*, with S301 likely a captured binary via the Hills mechanism.

via Boing Boing|
#astronomy#black-hole#relativity
Webb dots reveal early supermassive black holes in tiny galaxies
science2 days ago

Webb dots reveal early supermassive black holes in tiny galaxies

A Nature Astronomy study using JWST data from the COSMOS-Web region suggests the mysterious 'little red dots' are the earliest supermassive black holes, residing in very compact host galaxies that contain about 1 billion stars. The host galaxies are ~4% of the Milky Way’s size and contribute only ~10% of the dots’ light, while the central black holes (roughly 10^7–10^9 solar masses) dominate the emission. This implies black holes may grow most of their mass before their galaxies form most of their stars, shedding light on how black holes and galaxies co-evolve; the team analyzed 217 JWST images across a region about three times the Moon’s size to measure host properties and applied PSF subtraction to isolate the faint hosts.

via The Conversation|
#astronomy#black-holes#early-universe
science3 days ago

JWST Discovers a Black Hole Star Buried in Hydrogen at Cosmic Dawn

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope spotted MoM-BH*-1, a compact, red, ultra-bright source from just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang that is too luminous for nuclear fusion. The leading model places a ~100,000-solar-mass black hole inside a dense hydrogen envelope, with accretion energy reprocessed by the surrounding gas to produce star-like light. If confirmed, this “black hole star” could reveal how massive black holes grow in the early universe and help explain JWST’s mysterious little red dots.

via SciTechDaily|
#astronomy#black-holes#cosmic-dawn
Hidden Low-Mass Stars Make Early Massive Galaxies Much Heavier Than Thought
science3 days ago

Hidden Low-Mass Stars Make Early Massive Galaxies Much Heavier Than Thought

Webb Space Telescope observations (with VLT data) published in Nature Astronomy reveal a hidden population of small, faint stars in nine of the universe’s most massive early galaxies, implying those systems are far more massive than previously estimated. By analyzing subtle spectral signatures of low-mass stars, researchers found many more dwarfs than bright stars alone would suggest, with one galaxy formed within roughly 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang potentially four times heavier than thought. This challenges existing models of early galaxy growth and could have implications for planet formation around low-mass stars in the ancient universe.

via Gizmodo|
#astronomy#early-universe#galaxies