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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

00:02:19

Moon and Scorpius

StarDate ·

2025/07/06

The Moon will step on the head of the scorpion tonight. It will pass directly in front of one of the stars that outlines the head, blocking it from view – an event called an occultation. Pi Scorpii is actually a system of three stars, about 600 light-years away. The main star in the system is about a dozen times the mass of the Sun, and more than 20,000 times the Sun’s brightness. Because of its great mass, it’s already nearing the end of its life, even though it’s billions

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00:02:19

The BOAT

StarDate ·

2025/07/05

Antimatter may power more than just starships. It might also have helped rev up the BOAT – an exploding star nicknamed “the Brightest Of All Time.”It was seen in October of 2022, in Sagitta, the arrow. Right now, the constellation is in the east at nightfall. The event was a gamma-ray burst – a stellar explosion that aimed “jets” of gamma rays in our direction. It was by far the most powerful cosmic event ever seen. It produced more energy in one second than the

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00:02:19

Tarantula Nebula

StarDate ·

2025/07/04

A giant tarantula creeps through a nearby galaxy. It’s not trying to be stealthy, though – it’s the galaxy’s brightest feature. In fact, it’s the most impressive stellar nursery in the entire Local Group – the cluster of dozens of galaxies that includes the Milky Way. The Tarantula Nebula is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a companion galaxy to the Milky Way that’s just 160,000 light-years away. Over the last few million years, the nebula has given birth to

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00:02:19

Large Magellanic Cloud

StarDate ·

2025/07/03

Fireworks will light up the skies of many cities and towns this week – celebrations of Independence Day. For a real fireworks display, though, you might want to visit one of the Milky Way’s companion galaxies. It’s giving birth to many thousands of new stars, including some of the biggest and brightest yet seen anywhere – a result not of independence, but of a close relationship with another galaxy. The Large Magellanic Cloud is too far south to see from the continental

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00:02:19

Moon and Spica

StarDate ·

2025/07/02

The Sun is an impressive star. Its mass ranks in the top 10 percent of all the stars in the galaxy. But the bright star that snuggles up to the Moon the next couple of evenings puts the Sun to shame. It’s bigger and heavier, it has a close companion, and it’s shaped a bit like an egg. And it faces a more dramatic fate. Spica is the brightest star of the constellation Virgo. It consists of two stars – the bright star we see, plus a close companion that we can’t see. We know

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00:02:19

Earth at Aphelion

StarDate ·

2025/07/01

When it comes to Earth’s orbit around the Sun, the more things change – well, the more things change. Over the course of a year, our distance from the Sun varies by about three million miles. But that’s changing. And we’re farthest from the Sun in early July – but that’s changing, too. The farthest point from the Sun is known as aphelion – from Greek words that mean “far from the Sun.” And we’ll reach that point on Thursday. Earth will

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00:02:19

Messier 5

StarDate ·

2025/06/30

Lots of star clusters adorn the evening skies of summer. That’s because the glowing path of the Milky Way climbs high into the sky. It’s the combined glow of millions of stars that outline the disk of the Milky Way Galaxy. So not only does it contain lots of individual stars, it hosts many star clusters as well. But a few clusters are far from the path of the Milky Way. One example is Messier 5. It’s in Serpens Caput – the head of the serpent – a region with not much

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00:02:19

Moon and Mars

StarDate ·

2025/06/29

Mars and the Moon stage a spectacular encounter this evening. The Moon will slide just a fraction of a degree from the planet, which looks like a bright star.Something we’ve learned about both of these worlds is that they have a lot of frozen water. On the Moon, it’s mixed in with the dirt and pebbles, or buried in craters that never see the Sun. On Mars, it’s also mixed in at the surface, but it’s also found in the polar ice caps, in layers of frost, and elsewhere. On Mars,

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00:02:19

Moon and Companions

StarDate ·

2025/06/28

The crescent Moon and two bright pinpoints stairstep up the western sky this evening. Regulus, the star that represents the heart of the lion, is to the upper left of the Moon. And the planet Mars is about the same distance to the upper left of Regulus. The trio sets in late evening. The largest feature on the Moon has never been seen directly by human eyes – only by robots. That’s because it’s on the Moon’s far side – the hemisphere that always faces away from us. Only

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00:02:19

Destination Moon

StarDate ·

2025/06/27

Two decades before astronauts walked on the Moon, American movie-goers got a good preview of what the trip might look like. “Destination Moon” was the first big space movie. And it was the first to accurately explain the science and engineering of a trip to the Moon. Co-written by science-fiction author Robert Heinlein, the movie premiered 75 years ago today. In the story, millionaire businessmen decide to finance a lunar voyage. They build a nuclear-powered rocket in the desert, then

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00:02:19

Moon and Mercury

StarDate ·

2025/06/26

Early in its history, the inner solar system was chaotic. Violent collisions might have destroyed many small worlds, while perhaps creating others – including the Moon. It probably formed when a planet as big as Mars rammed into Earth, blasting out debris that came together to make the Moon. A recent study says that a meteorite discovered a few years ago might be a remnant of one of the demolished worlds. NWA 15915 was discovered in Algeria. Scientists analyzed the composition, structure, and

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00:02:19

Cygnus X-3

StarDate ·

2025/06/25

It would be fascinating to get close to Cygnus X-3. Unfortunately, it also would be deadly. The system is bathed in X-rays and ultraviolet radiation. It features powerful “jets” that blast into space like energy cannons. And it probably has a black hole – a one-way trip to oblivion. Cygnus X-3 is in the swan, which swoops across the eastern sky on these early summer evenings. The system itself is too faint to see. In fact, we can’t see its visible light even with the largest

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00:02:19

P Cygni

StarDate ·

2025/06/24

425 years ago, a “new” star flared to life near the neck of Cygnus, the swan. The star slowly faded, then flared twice more during the 17th century. It’s remained visible ever since. And someday soon, it’ll flare up again – for the last time: It’ll explode as a supernova. P Cygni is more than 5,000 light-years away, so it must be extremely bright for us to see it at all. And in fact, it’s one of the brightest stars in the entire galaxy – 600 thousand

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00:02:19

Cygnus Clusters

StarDate ·

2025/06/23

Cygnus, the swan, soars gracefully through summer nights. Its brightest star, Deneb, is in the northeast at nightfall. It marks the swan’s tail. The swan’s body stretches to the right, parallel to the horizon. The wings extend above and below, connected to the body by the star Sadr. Cygnus contains many star clusters. The list includes several that stretch from Sadr to the south, roughly along the swan’s neck. The clusters contain a few dozen to a few hundred stars. All of them are

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00:02:19

Greenwich Observatory

StarDate ·

2025/06/22

The Royal Observatory at Greenwich has been one of the most important skywatching sites in history – not so much for what it told us about the stars, but for its role right here on Earth. Its location marked the starting point for measuring longitude – the position east and west on the globe. It also marked the time standard for the entire world: Greenwich Mean Time. The observatory was established on today’s date in 1675, by King Charles II. It was built on a hill near London,

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00:02:19

Moon and Venus

StarDate ·

2025/06/21

The only astronomical object most of us notice in the daytime sky is our star, the Sun. Its light makes the sky bright, which overpowers the other stars and almost everything else. But there are a couple of exceptions: the Moon and the planet Venus.During its 29-and-a-half-day cycle of phases, the Moon spends half of its time in the daytime sky – the hours between sunrise and sunset. But it’s so pale compared to the Sun that it can be hard to notice. That’s especially true when

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00:02:19

June Solstice

StarDate ·

2025/06/20

The Sun is at a standstill. Oh, it’s still orbiting the center of the galaxy at an impressive clip – about half a million miles per hour. And it’s still moving across the sky as Earth turns on its axis. But the points along the horizon at which the Sun rises and sets aren’t changing. That’s because today is the summer solstice. It’s a point in Earth’s orbit that marks the beginning of summer in the northern hemisphere and winter in the southern

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00:02:19

Yo-Yo Planet

StarDate ·

2025/06/19

The number of confirmed planets in other star systems has reached about 6,000. But few of those planets are likely homes for life. Most are too hot, too cold, too “gassy,” or they’re zapped by too much radiation by their star. A few planets are in the “well, maybe” category. They might be suitable for life, but the conditions aren’t perfect. An example is a planet in the star system 82 Eridani. The system is about 20 light-years from Earth, and its star is similar

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00:02:19

Barnard’s Planets

StarDate ·

2025/06/18

Astronomers have been searching for planets around one of our closest neighbor stars for decades. And they’ve reported the discovery of several. But the reports have come to naught – until now. Earlier this year, a team confirmed the presence of four planets – all of them smaller than Earth. Barnard’s Star is six light-years away. Only the three stars of the Alpha Centauri system are closer. The star is much smaller and less massive than the Sun, and less than one percent as

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00:02:19

Moon and Saturn

StarDate ·

2025/06/17

If you stare at one of the giant planets of the outer solar system long enough, with a big enough telescope, you’re likely to find some moons. That was certainly the case a couple of years ago for Saturn. A research team scanned the space near Saturn with a large telescope in Hawaii. And earlier this year, the team reported its results: a haul of 128 previously unseen moons. That brought the planet’s total to 274. That’s three times the number of moons for second-place Jupiter

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