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StarDate

StarDate, the longest-running national radio science feature in the U.S., tells listeners what to look for in the night sky.

science astronomy

All Episodes

00:02:15

Moon and Regulus

StarDate ·

2026/04/25

As seen from the eastern United States, there’s a “now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t” event in the early evening sky. The Moon will occult Regulus – passing in front of Leo’s brightest star and blocking it from view. The star will remain hidden for a few minutes. But its disappearance is almost instantaneous:Regulus is there one second, then gone the next. It does take a tiny fraction of a second for the Moon to cover the star. Astronomers make precise measurements

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00:02:15

Pointing the Way

StarDate ·

2026/04/24

It’s hard to ask for a better signpost for finding things in the night sky than the planet Venus. Right now it’s the brilliant “evening star,” low in the west as twilight fades. And it points the way to two other wonders: the planet Uranus and the Pleiades star cluster. The Pleiades is fairly easy to find on its own. Its brightest stars form a tiny dipper shape. In fact, the Pleiades is often mistaken for the Little Dipper. But that dipper is in the north, anchored by the

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00:02:15

Thick Ice

StarDate ·

2026/04/23

Jupiter’s big moon Europa is one of the most likely bodies in the solar system to host life. The moon has a global ocean that holds more water than all of Earth’s oceans combined. The ocean might have sources of energy and chemical compounds that are needed to support microscopic life. But getting to that ocean won’t be easy. It’s covered by a crust of ice. And a recent study says the ice is pretty thick. The Juno spacecraft scanned part of Europa with an instrument that can

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00:02:15

Moon and Jupiter

StarDate ·

2026/04/22

In December of 2024, a region on Jupiter’s moon Io blew its top. Several huge volcanoes were erupting at the same time – the most powerful volcanic event ever seen anywhere in the solar system. The outburst covered an area the size of West Virginia. During the hour that a spacecraft was watching, it produced enough energy to power the entire United States for days.Io is by far the most active body in the solar system. It has hundreds of cones, lava pools, and other volcanic features

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00:02:15

Venus and Uranus

StarDate ·

2026/04/21

Two planets cross paths in the evening sky this week. One is brilliant, the other a little too faint to see without some help.The brilliant one is Venus, the “evening star.” In all the night sky, only the Moon outshines it, so you can’t miss it. But you can miss Uranus. It’s a giant, but it’s so far away that it’s not easy to see. Several factors control how bright a planet looks: the planet’s distance from both Earth and the Sun, its size, and how much

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00:02:20

Lyrid Meteors

StarDate ·

2026/04/20

A modest meteor shower should be at its best the next couple of nights. You need dark skies to see it – the glow of city lights will erase it from view. And even at its peak, the shower produces no more than a dozen or so meteors per hour. But the Moon won’t get in the way, so if you have good weather and a good viewing spot, it’s worth a look. The Lyrid shower occurs at this time every year as Earth passes through a trail of comet dust – debris from Comet Thatcher. The comet

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00:02:20

Moon and Companions

StarDate ·

2026/04/19

The Moon passes through the bull tonight. The bull’s “eye” – the star Aldebaran – is off to the left of the Moon. The bull’s face and shoulder are even closer, represented by a pair of star clusters – the Hyades and the Pleiades. For the most part, you can’t tell the distance to an astronomical object just by its appearance. Something that looks quite bright might be close, but it might also be far away and especially bright. But you can tell something

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00:02:20

Moon and Venus

StarDate ·

2026/04/18

You might want to have the butter and the Mrs. Butterworth’s handy for this one – it’s all about pancakes. Some of them are as big as a major city. There are only two problems: They’re made out of dense volcanic rock, and they’re on the planet Venus. Venus is covered with many thousands of volcanic features – lava plains, cone-shaped mountains, and structures that look like crowns and spiders. Most of the features are old, but there are hints that the planet is

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00:02:20

Morning Meeting

StarDate ·

2026/04/17

There’s a frustrating meeting of planets in the early morning sky right now. It’s frustrating because the planets are quite low in the sky in the dawn twilight, so they’re hard to see. The participants in this meet-up are Mercury, Mars, and Saturn. Tomorrow, they’ll form a tight triangle. They’ll form a straight line on Monday before they begin to separate. Mercury is the brightest of the trio, followed by Saturn, then Mars. The planets aren’t actually anywhere

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00:02:20

Alignments

StarDate ·

2026/04/16

Every time that two or more planets congregate in the night sky, fear mongers crank up the volume on their predictions of doom. They say the combined gravity of the planets will cause everything from earthquakes and storms to boils and hangnails. Don’t listen to them. All of the planets are so small or so far away that their short-term effects on Earth are negligible. Jupiter, the largest and heaviest planet in the solar system, is only one-tenth of one percent as massive as the Sun. And, on

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00:02:20

Coma Galaxies

StarDate ·

2026/04/15

The Coma galaxy cluster is like a cosmic iceberg. What you see is impressive. But what you don’t see is even more impressive. The cluster is centered more than 300 million light-years away, and it spans 25 million light-years. It contains thousands of individual galaxies. Many of them are far bigger and heavier than our own galaxy, the Milky Way. But in the 1930s, German astronomer Fritz Zwicky found something odd. He measured the motions of individual galaxies within the cluster. They were

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00:02:20

Coma Star Cluster

StarDate ·

2026/04/14

Astronomers love star clusters. All the stars in a cluster were born at the same time, from the same cloud of gas and dust. So any differences in the stars are the result of their evolution, which is a result of their mass. That makes it easier to learn what’s going on inside the stars. One problem, though, is identifying which stars belong to a cluster. It takes detailed measurements of motion and brightness to separate members of the cluster from stars that just happen to line up in the same

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00:02:20

Coma Berenices

StarDate ·

2026/04/13

The long-lost tail of the lion climbs high across the sky at this time of year – a spray of faint stars that trails behind Leo. Today, it’s known as Coma Berenices – the hair of Queen Berenice II of Egypt. It’s the only modern constellation that represents a real person. Originally, though, it was the tuft of hair at the end of the lion’s tail. The stars came to represent Berenice about 2300 years ago. The story was invented by the court astronomer to the king of Egypt,

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00:02:20

Edward Maunder

StarDate ·

2026/04/12

Most years, the Sun produces hundreds or thousands of sunspots – magnetic storms that look like dark splotches on its surface. From 1645 to 1715, though, sunspots all but disappeared. In many years, the number stayed in the single digits. And in some years, there were no sunspots at all. Today, that period is known as the Maunder minimum. It’s named for British astronomer Edward Maunder, who was born 175 years ago today. He wrote about the period in the late 1800s. Maunder was working at

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00:02:20

Navi

StarDate ·

2026/04/11

Gamma Cassiopeia is a busy star system. The main star is surrounding itself with a disk of gas and dust. The star is interacting with an invisible companion. And it’s building up to an impressive demise.Gamma Cas is the middle point of the letter M or W formed by the stars of Cassiopeia, which is high in the north-northwest at nightfall. Gamma Cas is the most distant member of that pattern, at 550 light-years. Its main star – the one visible to the eye alone – is about 15 times

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00:02:14

Going for a Ride

StarDate ·

2026/04/10

You might want to buckle up for this one. We’re going to take a wild ride through the universe. It’s a combination of several motions – involving our planet, our solar system, and our galaxy. First up is Earth’s motion around the Sun. Our planet’s average orbital speed is about 66,600 miles per hour. At that speed, it takes exactly one year for Earth to make one full turn. The Sun is moving as well, and it’s taking Earth and the rest of the solar system along for

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00:02:14

Iodine

StarDate ·

2026/04/09

Iodine is special. It’s the heaviest element that’s commonly needed by living organisms. In humans, it’s used by the thyroid to produce growth-regulating hormones. It’s found in seafood and other products. The element itself is created in some of the most violent events in the universe. In fact, so were almost all of the heaviest elements – anything more substantial than iron. The elements are forged in the rapid neutron-capture process. “Seed” elements are

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00:02:14

Distant Visitor

StarDate ·

2026/04/08

A long-distance visitor might put in a good showing in the early morning sky this month. And astronomers will be paying close attention.Comet C/2025 R3 PanStarrs was discovered in September. It probably is falling inward from the Oort Cloud. That’s a huge reservoir of balls of rock and ice that enwraps the solar system. This one might have been nudged inward by the gravity of a passing star. Objects in the Oort Cloud were born when the planets were taking shape. Jupiter’s gravity hurled

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00:02:14

Kepler’s Supernova

StarDate ·

2026/04/07

In October of 1604, a brilliant “new” star blazed to life in the constellation Ophiuchus. It was bright enough to see in the daytime for weeks. German astronomer Johannes Kepler kept a close eye on it until it faded from the night sky, in 1606. So today, it’s known as Kepler’s Supernova. It’s the last known supernova in the Milky Way Galaxy.A space telescope has been keeping a close eye on the aftermath of that event for the past 25 years. That’s revealed a lot

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00:02:14

SMILE

StarDate ·

2026/04/06

The Sun sprays Earth with a constant shower of charged particles – the solar wind. But the shower sometimes becomes a storm – a barrage that can damage satellites, overload power grids, and cause other mischief. Predicting such storms can save a lot of grief. But better predictions require a better understanding of the Sun, Earth’s magnetic field, and how they interact. A mission scheduled for launch as early as this week should help. SMILE is a joint project of Europe and China

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