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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

Lupus

StarDate ·

2025/07/12

A couple of bright cousins of Antares, the heart of the scorpion, skitter to its lower right on July evenings. They’re the brightest stars of Lupus, the wolf.The stars of Lupus originally formed part of the adjoining constellation Centaurus. But they were split off to form a new constellation a couple of thousand years ago. The wolf’s brightest stars are Alpha and Beta Lupi. Both stars belong to the Scorpius-Centaurus O-B association – a complex of stars and star-making

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00:02:19

Busy Disks

StarDate ·

2025/07/11

Newly forming planetary systems are busy and messy. They contain disks of gas, ice, and dust that are broken into wide bands. The supply of dust is replenished by frequent collisions between “exocomets” – balls of ice and rock up to a few miles across. And the bands may be stirred by the back-and-forth shifting of newborn planets. There’s a similar band in our own solar system – the Kuiper Belt. It begins beyond the edge of Neptune, the outermost major planet, and

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00:02:19

Venus and Aldebaran

StarDate ·

2025/07/10

When it comes to the night sky, what you see isn’t necessarily what you get. Consider Venus and Aldebaran, which are low in the east at first light. Venus is the brilliant “morning star.” Aldebaran stands directly below Venus, and shines just one percent as bright. But their apparent brightness is the only way in which Venus outranks Aldebaran. Venus is a planet in our own solar system – a little smaller and less massive than Earth. It’s so brilliant because it’s

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00:02:19

Cosmic Lightning

StarDate ·

2025/07/09

Thunderstorms generate what may be nature’s most impressive displays: lightning. And there’s plenty of it; lightning strikes Earth millions of times every day. Although lightning is common, it’s also mysterious. The electric fields inside clouds don’t appear to be strong enough to power lightning. So for the past 90 years, scientists have pondered whether it might have a cosmic origin – cosmic rays – particles that ram into Earth’s atmosphere at almost the

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00:02:19

Stellar Ripples

StarDate ·

2025/07/08

If you throw a rock into a still pond, waves ripple outward. They jiggle the leaves and bugs on the surface, shaking things up a bit. And the same thing happens in the stars. In fact, a giant region of the sky is still feeling some “ripples” today. The Scorpius-Centaurus O-B Association contains many stars of classes O and B – the hottest and brightest stars in the galaxy. It spans hundreds of light-years, and contains thousands of stars. And more stars are being born there

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00:02:19

Moon and Antares

StarDate ·

2025/07/07

The star that marks the heart of the scorpion is at death’s door. Sometime in the next million years or so, Antares is expected to explode as a supernova. But astronomers don’t know exactly when that’ll happen. There’s no way to see into its core, which is where the fusion reactions that power the star take place. And with current technology, we can’t tell that the end is near by looking at the surface of Antares. The star is many times the mass of the Sun, so when its

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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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