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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

Kochab

StarDate ·

2024/04/20

The Little Dipper is famous for the star at the tip of its handle: Polaris, the North Star. Earth’s axis points in that direction, so all the other stars in the night sky appear to circle around it. The second-brightest star in the dipper is Kochab, at the lip of the bowl. It isn’t nearly as famous as Polaris, but it’s almost as bright. Kochab is a giant — more than 40 times the Sun’s diameter, and almost 400 times its brightness. It’s so big because it’s nearing the end of its life. The nuclear

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00:02:15

Lyrid Meteors

StarDate ·

2024/04/19

The Lyrid meteor shower is building toward its peak, on Sunday night. The Moon will be almost full then, so its glare will wash out all but the brightest of the “shooting stars.”The shower is the offspring of Comet Thatcher 1861. The comet orbits the Sun once every 415 years or so. As Thatcher approaches the Sun, some of the ice at its surface vaporizes. That releases small bits of dirt and rock into space. This debris spreads out along the comet’s path. Earth flies through this path every April

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00:02:15

Galactic ‘Twin?’

StarDate ·

2024/04/18

The Small Magellanic Cloud is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. It’s about 200,000 light-years away, it contains hundreds of millions of stars, and it’s easily visible to the eye alone — from the southern hemisphere. And it may actually consist of two separate but related halves — two galaxies for the price of one. Astronomers had suggested that possibility almost four decades ago. And a recent study provided the best evidence yet to support the idea. It found two large star-forming regions that

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00:02:15

Moon and Leo

StarDate ·

2024/04/17

The heart of the lion stays close to the Moon the next couple of nights. The bright star that marks the lion’s heart is Regulus. It’s to the lower left of the Moon at nightfall this evening, and to the upper right of the Moon tomorrow evening. Regulus is impressive. It’s a system of four stars, but only one shines bright enough to see. Known as Regulus A, it’s almost four times the Sun’s mass, and more than 300 times the Sun’s brightness. But the Moon is even closer to another star of Leo that’s

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00:02:15

Jupiter and Uranus

StarDate ·

2024/04/16

Two giants of the solar system huddle close together in the evening twilight the next few days. The viewing window is short, so you need to time it just right to see them.Jupiter and Uranus are low in the west as twilight fades. Jupiter is easy to pick out — it looks like a brilliant star. Uranus is just above it tonight, by about the width of your finger held at arm’s length. But you need binoculars to pick it out. The planets will slide past each other on Sunday night. Uranus is the Sun’s

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00:02:11

Arcturus

StarDate ·

2024/04/15

The star Arcturus is a little bit heavier than our own star, the Sun. Yet that small difference has a big effect on the star’s evolution: Arcturus entered a late stage billions of years earlier than the Sun will. Arcturus is one of the brighter stars in the night sky, and shines yellow-orange. Both of those traits are a result of its stage in life, which was triggered by its mass. Mass is the key to how quickly a star consumes the hydrogen in its core. The gravity of a heavier star squeezes its core

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00:02:11

Moon and Gemini

StarDate ·

2024/04/14

The Moon creeps up on the twin stars of Gemini this evening. As night falls, Pollux and Castor are above the Moon. Pollux is on the left, and is a bit brighter than its “twin.”There’s a lot more to Gemini than just the twins — or even the other stars that are visible to the unaided eye. In fact, one of its most intriguing objects produces most of its energy in the form of X-rays and gamma rays, which are far beyond the range of the human eye. The object is known as Geminga — short for “Gemini

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00:02:11

Vanishing Hunter

StarDate ·

2024/04/13

This time of year is pretty inviting for some evening skywatching. The evening hours are warm but not usually too hot, and spring storm activity generally hasn’t reached its peak — pleasant conditions for watching the stars.Unfortunately, one of the most beautiful star patterns is dropping from view, so there aren’t many more weeks to enjoy it. Orion the hunter is low in the west as night falls. Its three-star belt stands almost parallel to the horizon. And its two brightest stars bracket the

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00:02:11

Vaporized Planets

StarDate ·

2024/04/12

Planetary systems can be violent. In our own solar system, for example, the Moon probably was born from the debris left over when a planet as big as Mars rammed into Earth billions of years ago. And the giant planet Uranus probably was knocked over on its side by a similar collision about the same time. A more recent example comes from ASASSN-21qj — a star system that’s about 1800 light-years away, in the constellation Puppis. In December of 2021, astronomers noticed that a Sun-like star there

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00:02:11

Vaporizing Planet

StarDate ·

2024/04/11

Planets like Earth live in the “Goldilocks zone” — the region around a star where conditions are most comfortable for life. But most planets aren’t so cushy. They’re either far away and cold, or close in and hot. And some are so close that they’re being vaporized by their star. One example is WASP-69 b. It orbits a cool, faint star about 160 light-years from Earth. The system is in the constellation Aquarius, which is in the southeastern sky at dawn tomorrow. WASP-69 b is only a few million miles

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00:02:11

Seeing Giants

StarDate ·

2024/04/10

If you heat up some alphabet soup, you shouldn’t end up with all the letters clumped together — they should be fairly evenly spread throughout the pot. According to the current understanding of the universe, the same thing should apply to galaxies. They may clump together on smaller scales, forming clusters and even super-clusters. But when you look at the universe as a whole, the galaxies ought to be evenly spread. Yet astronomers have found giant galaxy structures that seem to defy that idea —

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00:02:11

Moon and Planets

StarDate ·

2024/04/09

Europa is one of the more intriguing bodies in the solar system — and one that scientists are especially eager to land a spacecraft on. The big moon of Jupiter may have a global ocean below its icy crust — an ocean that could host life. But landing on Europa won’t be easy. It’s hundreds of millions of miles away, and it’s embedded in Jupiter’s powerful radiation belts. And the surface near its equator could be mottled by fields of icy spikes that are up to five stories high. Such structures are

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00:02:11

Future Eclipses

StarDate ·

2024/04/08

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a big event this afternoon — a total eclipse of the Sun. Totality is visible along a narrow path from Texas to Maine. The parts of the country outside that path will see a partial eclipse. If you miss it — well, let’s just say it’ll be a long wait until the next great eclipse over the United States. The next total eclipse visible anywhere will take place on August 12th, 2026. Its path will cross parts of Europe, but most of it will cross the high Arctic. The

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00:02:14

Total Eclipse

StarDate ·

2024/04/07

It’s almost time for the year’s big celestial event: a total eclipse of the Sun. Tomorrow afternoon, the Moon will pass directly between Earth and the Sun. That will block the Sun’s disk. The sky will grow dark, with a pink glow around the horizon. Stars and planets will pop into view. And the Sun’s faint outer atmosphere, the corona, will look like silvery ribbons around the Moon. Totality will be visible along a narrow path. In the United States, it’ll stretch from Eagle Pass, Texas, to Houlton,

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00:02:14

Eclipse Flights

StarDate ·

2024/04/06

In the mythology of ancient Egypt, Apep was the serpent god — the rival of Re, the sun god. He chased Re, and sometimes briefly caught him — creating a solar eclipse.NASA plans to launch an experiment named for the serpent god to study the eclipse on Monday. Instruments will fly on three different rockets. They won’t look at the Sun, though. Instead, they’ll study the effect of the eclipse on the ionosphere — a high-altitude layer of Earth’s atmosphere. The ionosphere carries an electric charge

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00:02:14

Eclipse Animals

StarDate ·

2024/04/05

Colonial orb-weaver spiders may have some extra work to do on Monday, during a total solar eclipse. During an eclipse in 1991, scientists watched as spiders in Mexico began tearing down their webs as the sky darkened — something they do every evening. When the Sun returned, most of them rebuilt their webs, just as they do every morning. That’s just one example of how life reacts to eclipses. Like the spiders, many daytime animals start their evening rituals. And many nighttime animals wake up when

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00:02:14

Eclipse Legends

StarDate ·

2024/04/04

A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes in front of the Sun, briefly blocking it from view. Before people understood the science, however, they created legends to explain the Sun’s disappearance. Many of those legends involved animals or mythical monsters. In China and elsewhere, it was thought the Sun was being devoured by a dragon. People in Vietnam blamed a hungry frog. In Scandinavia, it was a giant wolf set loose by the god Loki. In India, it was the severed head of a monster. Still

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00:02:14

Eclipse Forecasts

StarDate ·

2024/04/03

The Great North American Eclipse is coming up on Monday. The Moon will briefly cover the Sun. That will turn day to night along a narrow path across Mexico, the United States, and Canada. The timing of the eclipse is known down to the second, and has been for decades. And today, astronomers can predict eclipses far into the future. But making such predictions isn’t easy. It requires a detailed knowledge of the Moon’s orbit around Earth, Earth’s orbit around the Sun, and even the shapes of Earth and

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00:02:14

Corona

StarDate ·

2024/04/02

On Monday, millions of people will see something they’ve never seen before: the Sun’s corona — its hot outer atmosphere. It extends hundreds of thousands of miles from the surface of the Sun. But it’s so faint that it’s overpowered by the Sun’s brilliant disk. The only time we can see it is during a total solar eclipse. The corona is made of super-heated gas known as plasma. In fact, the corona is heated to a couple of million degrees Fahrenheit, and sometimes hotter. By comparison, the Sun’s

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00:02:14

Solar Eclipse

StarDate ·

2024/04/01

Many people dread Mondays and the start of the new work week. But there’s something to look forward to next Monday: the Great North American Eclipse. The Moon will completely cover the Sun, turning the sky dark. Tendrils of light will extend away from the Moon — the Sun’s hot outer atmosphere, the corona. If you can find a way to get to the eclipse path, it’s worth the effort. For this eclipse, the Moon is a little closer to Earth than average. So the period of totality, when the Sun is fully

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