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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

Pleiades II

StarDate ·

2024/12/30

The Pleiades star cluster is also known as the Seven Sisters. That’s because seven of its stars are fairly easy to pick out. They form a small but prominent dipper. In Greek mythology, the stars represented the daughters of Atlas, one of the Titans – the ancient gods who reigned before the gods of Olympus. As with many groups of siblings, though, one stands out: Alcyone, the brightest star in the cluster. It’s actually a lot like its other bright siblings – the standouts in a

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00:02:15

The Pleiades

StarDate ·

2024/12/29

The Pleiades star cluster is one of the prettiest sights in the night sky – a group of moderately bright stars that forms a tiny dipper. Depending on your eyesight and your sky conditions, you might see six or seven stars – or perhaps a few more. But there’s far more to the Pleiades than that. The cluster contains more than a thousand known star systems. More than half of the systems have two or more stars. So the total number of stars may be close to two thousand – or

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00:02:15

Fornax

StarDate ·

2024/12/28

A constellation with connections to both scientific advancement and the horrors of war and revolution scoots low across the southern sky tonight. Fornax is in the southeast at nightfall. It’s not much to look at – its three brightest stars form a faint wedge that aims toward the south. In fact, it’s so feeble and so far south that it wasn’t drawn until the mid-1700s. Fornax was one of 14 constellations created by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de la Caille, after he mapped

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00:02:15

Moon and Companions

StarDate ·

2024/12/27

If you’re up early tomorrow, and you have a clear southeastern horizon, you might want to step out into the winter chill for a few seconds – or maybe just look out your kitchen window. The Moon will pass amazingly close to the star Antares, the heart of the scorpion. And an even brighter light will stand not far to the left: the planet Mercury. All three are quite low in the sky during the dawn twilight, and quickly vanish as the sky gets brighter. The Moon and Antares are visible at

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00:02:15

Venus in Capricornus

StarDate ·

2024/12/26

Capricornus is one of the constellations of the zodiac, so it’s well known. But it’s small and faint, so it’s not easy to see – especially from light-polluted cities. Right now, though, a bright light points the way. Venus, the “evening star,” is passing quite close to the constellation’s brightest star. The rest of Capricornus spreads out below Venus. The constellation represents a sea-goat – the body of a goat with the tail of a fish. And there are

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00:02:15

Christmas Tree

StarDate ·

2024/12/25

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, How lovely are your branches! That’s certainly true for the branches of the Christmas Tree star cluster – a family of young stars in the constellation Monoceros, the unicorn. The cluster’s brighter stars form the outline of a Christmas tree. Other stars look like ribbons of lights decorating the tree. The cluster is about 2500 light-years away. All of its stars are infants – no more than a few million years old. The most impressive member

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00:02:15

Barred Spirals

StarDate ·

2024/12/24

A cosmic ornament decorates the night at this time of year. NGC 1300 is too faint to see with the eye alone. But images reveal one of the most beautiful galaxies in the universe. A long “bar” of stars crosses its middle, with ribbons of stars trailing away from the bar’s ends. Barred spirals are becoming more common as the universe ages. About seven billion years ago, only 20 percent of spiral galaxies had bars. But in the modern universe, the fraction goes up to about 65 percent

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00:02:15

Moon and Spica

StarDate ·

2024/12/23

Despite its appearance, the Moon is dark. On average, its surface reflects only about a tenth of the sunlight that strikes it. But some regions are much brighter than their surroundings. They contain loops and squiggles that can stretch for dozens of miles. Some are big enough to see through small telescopes. And planetary scientists are still trying to figure out what causes them. These features are known as lunar swirls. Many of them look like ribbons of cream poured into a cup of hot coffee. The

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00:02:15

Rho Cassiopeia

StarDate ·

2024/12/22

Like the Sun, Rho Cassiopeia is a class G2 star. That means their surface temperature is the same, so they both look yellow. But that’s just about the only thing they have in common. Rho Cass is one of the most impressive stars in the galaxy. And it faces a much more dramatic fate than the Sun does. Rho Cass is a yellow hypergiant. If it took the Sun’s place in our own solar system, it would engulf the four innermost planets, including Earth. It’s about 40 times more massive than

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00:02:20

Long-Night Moon

StarDate ·

2024/12/14

Moon lovers, rejoice! Tonight’s full Moon will be in view longer than any other full Moon of the year – the Long-Night Moon.The full Moon lines up opposite the Sun, so it does just the opposite of what the Sun does in the daytime sky. The winter solstice – the shortest day of the year – is just a week away, so the Sun is putting in its most feeble appearance` of the year. It rises late, sets early, and scoots low across the south during the day. So the full Moon does just

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00:02:20

Geminid Meteors

StarDate ·

2024/12/13

Friday the 13th brings a bit of bad luck for skywatchers this year. The Geminid meteor shower is at its peak, and it’s generally one of the year’s best, with peak rates of more than a hundred meteors per hour. But the Moon is almost full, so it’ll overpower all but the brightest meteors. A meteor forms when a bit of debris from a comet or asteroid rams into the atmosphere at tens of thousands of miles per hour. That generates intense heat, so the particle burns up, leaving a streak

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00:02:20

Impact Aftermath

StarDate ·

2024/12/12

Life has a way of adapting when things change. An impact by a giant asteroid wiped out most of the life on Earth about 66 million years ago. Within years, though, life began to rebound – especially plant life. Dense forests developed. And a recent study says that, in the western hemisphere, the winners included grapes and other viny plants. The asteroid was about six miles in diameter. According to another recent study, it was born in the early solar system, beyond the orbit of Jupiter. An

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00:02:20

Antarctic Meteorites II

StarDate ·

2024/12/11

Antarctica has been a target in a cosmic shooting gallery over the past few million years. At least three big asteroids have exploded above the continent. And two of them were close enough to the ground to cause major damage. In fact, such an explosion over a populated region today could kill millions. Scientists have found evidence of the explosions in the Antarctic ice. Thirty years ago, for example, teams looking for meteorites atop the ice found a dark streak in the ice. The streak contained a

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00:02:14

Antarctic Meteorites

StarDate ·

2024/12/10

Several scientists plan to spend the next few weeks snowmobiling across the ice sheets of Antarctica. It’s not a vacation or an extreme-sports event. Instead, they’ll be hunting for meteorites – bits of space rock sitting atop the ice. About two-thirds of all the meteorites found on Earth have been recovered from Antarctica. They aren’t more common there, but they are easier to find. There aren’t many Earth rocks on the ice, and meteorites look different. Many of them

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00:02:14

Violent Nursery

StarDate ·

2024/12/09

Making planets is messy. It involves giant clouds of gas and dust, and frequent collisions between planetary building blocks. And it takes tens of millions of years to sort out. A good example of how it works is seen in the star system Beta Pictoris. The star is only about 20 million years old. It has two known planets, both of which are much more massive than Jupiter, the giant of our own solar system. But the star also is encircled by huge disks of gas and dust – the raw materials for making

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00:02:14

Venus Transit

StarDate ·

2024/12/08

Astronomers were scattered across the globe 150 years ago today to watch a black dot move across the face of the Sun – a transit of the planet Venus. They’d use their observations to measure the distance to the Sun, revealing the scale of the entire solar system. Astronomers already knew that distance to within a few million miles. But they wanted a more accurate reading. They’d get that by watching the transit from many locations. Venus would cross the Sun at a slightly different

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00:02:14

Moon and Saturn

StarDate ·

2024/12/07

The Moon barrels toward the planet Saturn tonight. Saturn looks like a prominent star to the upper left of the Moon at nightfall. As they drop lower in the sky, the gap between them will close. From most of the country, they’ll be a couple of degrees apart as they set – the width of a finger held at arm’s length. From Alaska and Hawaii they’ll be even closer – almost touching each other.Although Saturn is bright, it’s a little fainter than average now

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00:02:14

Jupiter Opposition III

StarDate ·

2024/12/06

Jupiter is like a mini solar system. The Sun’s largest planet has a family of almost a hundred known moons. Most of them are little more than cosmic flotsam – chips of rock and ice no more than a couple of miles wide. But a few rank among the most interesting worlds in the solar system. The four largest moons are Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. They account for more than 99.9 percent of the combined mass of all of Jupiter’s moons. They probably formed along with Jupiter itself,

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00:02:14

Jupiter Opposition II

StarDate ·

2024/12/05

Jupiter is backing up. The planet is in the “retrograde” portion of its trip across the sky. Instead of its usual eastward motion against the background of stars, it’s moving to the west. And right now, it’s about half way through that “reverse” period. That’s because Jupiter is at opposition – it lines up opposite the Sun in our sky. Some people see a planet’s retrograde period as an omen. What kind of omen depends on the planet and the person

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00:02:14

Moon and Venus

StarDate ·

2024/12/04

The Moon and the planet Venus – the brilliant “evening star” – put on a spectacular display tonight. They’ll be separated by the width of a couple of fingers held at arm’s length. They’ll be easy to spot not long after sunset, and they’ll remain in good view for more than two hours. Venus and the Moon are in almost opposite “phases” tonight. The Moon is a thin crescent – the Sun lights up only about 14 percent of the hemisphere that

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