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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

Vernal Equinox

StarDate ·

2026/03/19

Spring arrives in the northern hemisphere tomorrow morning, when the Sun crosses the celestial equator from south to north – the vernal equinox. Over the next three months, the Sun will travel ever farther northward, bringing longer, warmer days north of the equator. Vernal comes from the Latin word for spring. And equinox means “equal nights.” Theoretically, all points on Earth should see equal amounts of daylight and darkness on the equinox. But for several reasons, the interval

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00:02:15

Messier 87

StarDate ·

2026/03/18

The heart of the galaxy Messier 87 is a cosmic maelstrom. A disk of super-heated gas that’s hundreds of times the size of our solar system encircles a monster black hole. Gas at the inner edge of the disk spirals into the black hole, producing huge amounts of X-rays. Enormous magnetic fields channel some of the gas into powerful “jets.” It’s not a place you’d ever want to visit. But it’s a fascinating region to study from far away.M87 is a giant elliptical

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00:02:15

Virgo Cluster

StarDate ·

2026/03/17

A galaxy cluster is like a cosmic blender. It stirs up the galaxies and the space between them. Nothing is left undisturbed.A perfect example is the Virgo Cluster. It consists of more than 1500 individual galaxies, centered about 55 million light-years away. Most of them are fairly small and faint. But a few are monsters – many times the size and mass of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. The cluster’s galaxies are packed fairly close together. So the gravity of each galaxy pulls at its

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00:02:15

The First Step

StarDate ·

2026/03/16

Snow blanketed the launch pad, and the rocketeers sipped hot malted milk to ward off the chill. But the launch they conducted a century ago today turned the idea of space travel from fantasy to possibility – and provided the first small step toward the Moon. The rocket was designed by Robert Goddard, a physics professor at Clark University in Massachusetts. Goddard was brilliant but secretive. He refused to collaborate with other scientists, and seldom even talked about his research. Instead,

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00:02:15

Leo Triplet

StarDate ·

2026/03/15

A three-way tug-of-war isn’t a common sight – unless you look toward the constellation Leo. Three galaxies there are tugging at one another, producing some spectacular results. The galaxies are M65, M66, and NGC 3628 – the Leo Triplet. All three galaxies are about the same size as our home galaxy, the Milky Way. And each may resemble the Milky Way – a beautiful spiral with a long “bar” of stars across its middle. The triplets are close enough together that the

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00:02:15

Pi Day

StarDate ·

2026/03/14

It sounds like a toddler’s attempt to say “Friday” or, even better, a day to gorge on apple crumb or coconut cream. Alas, “Pi Day” is something completely different. It’s a commemoration of a mathematical constant that’s represented by the Greek letter pi – one of the most important quantities in science. Pi is the ratio of a circle’s diameter to its circumference. When it’s rounded off to two digits, it’s 3.14 – the numerical

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00:02:15

Adhara

StarDate ·

2026/03/13

To the eye alone, the brightest star in the night sky is Sirius, the leading light of Canis Major, the big dog. It’s well up in the south at nightfall – a brilliant beacon less than nine light-years away. If we could shift the sensitivity of our eyes to shorter wavelengths, the brightest star would appear a little below Sirius. Adhara is already the second-brightest star in the constellation. But it produces most of its energy in the extreme ultraviolet – wavelengths that are far

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00:02:15

Messier Highway

StarDate ·

2026/03/12

For Charles Messier, star clusters were a nuisance. The French astronomer was mainly interested in comets. In the 18th century, finding a comet could bring fame and fortune – kings sometimes awarded medals and fat stipends for their discovery. Through a telescope, star clusters could resemble comets. Messier and others might spend time following a cluster, only to find out that it wasn’t the prize. So Messier compiled a catalog of clusters and similar nuisances – a list of objects

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00:02:15

Canis Major

StarDate ·

2026/03/11

Winter brings out the big dogs – some of the most prominent constellations of all. And one of those really is a dog: Canis Major, the big dog. It’s best known for Sirius, the Dog Star – the brightest star in the night sky. It’s a third of the way up the southern sky at nightfall.But there’s much more to Canis Major than just Sirius. It includes several bright stars, most of which are below or to the right of Sirius. When you link them up, they do form the outline of a

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00:02:14

Amazing Stories

StarDate ·

2026/03/10

A magazine that first hit newsstands 100 years ago today was unlike anything readers had seen before. Its cover featured a brightly-colored painting of people ice-skating on a comet as it zoomed past Saturn. Its founding editor, Hugo Gernsback, called it “a new sort of magazine” – “a magazine of ‘scientifiction'” – a genre known today as science fiction.Amazing Stories was the first magazine dedicated solely to the genre. Its debut issue, which was dated

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00:02:14

Moon and Antares

StarDate ·

2026/03/09

A future super-giant “onion” perches close to the Moon at dawn tomorrow. It’s the star Antares, the bright heart of the scorpion – one of the most impressive stars in the galaxy. Antares is a supergiant. It’s roughly a dozen times as massive as the Sun, and hundreds of times wider. Because it’s so heavy, gravity squeezes its core tightly. That revs up the nuclear fusion in the core. Like all stars, those reactions initially fused hydrogen to make helium. In the

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00:02:14

Bad Neighbor

StarDate ·

2026/03/08

Canopus would be a terrible neighbor. The star is big, bright, and hot, so it might blow away any planet-making materials around nearby stars. Even worse, it may be destined to explode. That would zap any existing planets with radiation – perhaps endangering any life in nearby star systems.Canopus is the second-brightest star in the night sky. At this time of year, it’s visible from the southern third of the United States in early evening. It’s low in the south, well below Sirius,

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00:02:14

Argo Navis

StarDate ·

2026/03/07

The tale of Jason and the Argonauts is one of the biggest and boldest stories in Greek mythology. And it involves some of the greatest heroes, many of whom are depicted in the stars – from the twins of Gemini to mighty Hercules. The boat itself was placed in the stars as well. But even it was too big. Astronomers eventually split it apart. The original constellation was Argo Navis. It was first drawn almost 3,000 years ago. It was far larger than any of the other ancient western

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00:02:14

Comet Armada

StarDate ·

2026/03/06

The first ship in a solar-system armada reached its target 40 years ago today. Over the following week, four others joined it. Their target was Comet Halley. It was making its first passage through the inner solar system since 1910. So it was the first chance to study the comet from close range. And space agencies around the world responded. The Soviet Union and Japan each sent two spacecraft, and Europe added one more. The first to arrive was Vega 1, one of the Soviet missions. It and a companion,

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00:02:14

Ancient Visitor

StarDate ·

2026/03/05

Visitors sometimes just drop in on us. But a visitor to a home in Georgia took the notion of “dropping in” a bit far. It smashed through the roof, an air duct, and a thick layer of insulation before splatting into the floor, leaving a crater the size of a quarter. It missed smacking into a resident by just 14 feet. The “visitor” was a meteorite – part of a much larger space rock. The rock formed a glowing streak as it raced through the skies of the southeastern United

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00:02:14

Long Death Cry

StarDate ·

2026/03/04

Last July, a space telescope heard the death cry of a star billions of light-years away. It was the longest outcry of its type ever detected – an astonishing seven hours. Yet its details are still fuzzy. All we know for sure is that it was a violent ending for a star.The outcry was a gamma-ray burst. Astronomers have discovered thousands of them. They’re usually produced by a supernova – the titanic explosion of a massive star. Energy from the nuclear inferno deep inside the star

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00:02:14

Venus and Saturn

StarDate ·

2026/03/03

Two of the planets of the solar system are crossing paths in the early evening. But they’re quite low in the sky, so they can be a bit tough to spot.The brighter of the two is Venus, which is beginning its reign as the “evening star.” It’ll climb higher into the sky over the coming weeks and months, making it much easier to spot. Right now, though, it sets by the time the color of twilight drains away, so there’s not much time to enjoy it. Venus’s companion is

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00:02:14

Lunar Eclipse

StarDate ·

2026/03/02

Life is all about cycles: birth and death, the rise and fall of the seasons, Taylor Swift tour eras. Many cycles play out in the sky as well. One of them is in view in the wee hours of tomorrow morning, as the Moon and Sun stage a total lunar eclipse. All or most of it will be visible across most of the United States. A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes through Earth’s long shadow. The Moon’s orbit is tilted a bit, so most months the Moon passes above or below the shadow. When

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00:02:14

Moon and Regulus

StarDate ·

2026/03/01

The Moon stalks the heart of the lion tonight. And seen from Hawaii, it’ll catch it. The Moon will “occult” the heart, blocking it from view. The lion’s heart is Regulus, the brightest star of Leo. The name Regulus means “the little king.” It was introduced 500 years ago. But the star’s association with royalty goes back much farther. In ancient Persia, Regulus was one of the four “royal” stars – four especially bright stars near the

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00:02:14

Missing Planets

StarDate ·

2026/02/28

The planets in our solar system fit into two groups. Four of the planets are small and rocky; Earth is the largest. The other four are big and bloated; Neptune is the smallest. But there’s nothing between the sizes of Earth and Neptune. And that’s a bit odd. Two of the most common types of planets elsewhere in the galaxy are somewhere in the middle: super-Earths and mini-Neptunes. Astronomers have confirmed more than 6,000 planets in other star systems. Only one system has as many known

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