Select the right objects to observe and don’t get too hung up on magnitude. A bright galaxy with a decent brightness may be invisible since it’s diffuse, while a dim planetary target may be much easier to spot After a shower, night appears darker as

An alignment of objects at the same celestial longitude. The conjunction of the Moon and the planets is determined with reference to the Sun. A planet is in conjunction with the Sun when it and Earth are aligned on opposite sides of the Sun. How high

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White dwarfs are stars that have reached the ends of their lives. They have masses similar to our Sun, but that mass is contained in an area about the size of Earth. These stars no longer have fusion going on in their cores. They cool over time, so t

1 Pioneer 10 came close enough to the giant planet to acquire a gravitational boost that ensured it would eventually escape from the Solar System into interstellar space. 2 Pioneer 11 flew past Jupiter too, but it then went on to the next planet out,

Scientists have observed something unexpected in Venus’ atmosphere – an increase in the level of deuterium relative to hydrogen. The consequences of this discovery could upend our current understanding of the amber world. As it turns out, it would af

Cosmic dust may have helped kick-start life on Earth. New findings challenge a widely held assumption that this wasn’t a plausible explanation. The origin of life on Earth has long remained a mystery. Many theories suggest that life emerged from preb

Planets have a region around them where orbiting objects can be gravitationally bound. In planetary science this is called the ‘Hill sphere’, named after 19th-century American astronomer George Hill, who worked on the Moon’s orbit. The size of the Hi

I am the creator of the fragrance Eau de Space, and I was originally approached by someone working at NASA back in 2008 with an idea to help make astronaut training more realistic by creating the smell experienced after walking in space. I don’t beli

While there are many fascinating objects in the night sky to turn a telescope towards, star clusters are bountiful starscapes – glittering clumps of hundreds to millions of stars bound together by their collective gravity and travelling through space

A search of more than 1,300 galaxies for extraterrestrial signals has helped constrain expectations as to how many communicating technological civilisations may exist beyond Earth. Conducted with the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) in Australia, the

The event that is said to have created time and space is thought to have occurred some 13.8 billion years ago. Here the universe was infinitely hot and dense before cooling and inflating. One-trillionth of a second after the Big Bang, the weak and el

The Sky-Watcher Explorer 130 has something most affordable telescopes lack. It ships with an equatorial mount, which when aligned with Earth’s axis allows it to more easily track objects as they appear to move across the night sky. Since most afforda

Cost: £259 /$359.95 From: Celestron 1 Beginners who want to explore the world of astronomy should consider starting with a traditional refractor telescope like the Inspire 100AZ, which is especially adept at viewing planets. It’s a simple telescope d

Light pollution and astronomy don’t go hand in hand. If you’re a resident of a town or city, this may be a statement that has put you off buying a telescope or simply heading outside to gaze up at the night sky. It’s true that there’s no contest betw

More than four months after launching to space, a solar-sailing spacecraft has successfully spread its wings above our planet. NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) caught a ride to space on 24 April on Rocket Lab’s Electron vehicle, and

On 28 June 2012, I was browsing the newsstand in my local WHSmiths in Tonbridge. I was on my lunch hour as a staff writer at Astronomy Now when I saw the very first issue of All About Space. The rest, they say, is history. Fast forward to November 20

A long-lost moon could explain why Mars is so different from the other rocky planets in the Solar System. Today Mars has two tiny moons. But early in its history, the Red Planet may have had a much larger moon, which might be responsible for Mars’ we

Artificial intelligence is all the rage these days. When we think of AI, we’re usually thinking of uncanny deep-fake images and ChatGPT’s written responses – but astronomers are using it to make significant discoveries, too. Researchers from the Flat

This area is the boundary of the heliosphere, the bubble that’s surrounding the Sun. The contents of the heliopause are the furthest point from our star to be influenced by its material and its magnetic field. Launched in 1977 to explore the Solar Sy

Although she is now regarded as a great American hero, Shannon Lucid was actually born in China in 1943. Aged just six weeks, Lucid and her parents were taken to an internment camp and held as prisoners of war for a year. When they were finally relea

How did you become interested in space exploration? It all started when I was nine years old; I was in fourth grade, reading an article in a magazine about the Gemini program. They were profiling the astronauts and the missions, and that was when I r

Debris from the impact of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) with the asteroid Dimorphos could reach Earth and Mars, astronomers have concluded. However, while the debris could result in meteors on Mars, it’s rather unlikely we’ll see a m

The rosy-red structures of a nearby galaxy glow brightly in a new image from the Hubble Space Telescope. The Andromeda Galaxy – the Milky Way’s closest galactic neighbour – is located about 2.5 million light years away. Measuring approximately 152,00

Distance from Earth: 4.3 light years Current travel time: 30,000 years Interstellar speed travel time: 43 years This three-star system includes Proxima Centauri, which is the nearest star to Earth after the Sun. It’s confirmed there are at least two

The top image shows the distribution of the brightest galaxies in the local universe as observed in the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS), which took place between 1997 and 2001. It used telescopes at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in Arizona

The Milky Way is not visible, while the Pleiades Cluster (Messier 45) is invisible to all but the most experienced. Only constellations with bright stars are visible, and they are missing fainter stars. Clouds are brilliantly lit. Faintest magnitude:

The Kankoh-maru, named after the steam-powered Japanese Kankō Maru warship, is ambitious in its design to say the least. If it reaches fruition, this bizarre egg-shaped vehicle will take off and land by vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) as a

If you’re looking for a rich, high-resolution experience when watching the night sky – or even for daytime terrestrial observing – then there is no better resource to have in your arsenal than a good binocular. The Celestron SkyMaster 20x80 is of a s