Category Archives: Astronomy

Astronomy, Education, Space participation

Night sky highlights for April 2025

Check out the night sky this month, April 2025. Here are videos and links to websites highlighting the top sights to observe.

** What’s Up: April 2025 Skywatching Tips from NASA – NASA JPL

What are some skywatching highlights in April 2025?

Following a planet-free morning sky in March, April brings planets back to your mornings, as well as the evening sky. Also look for Lyrid meteors, and hunt for the “faint fuzzy” wonder that is the distant and ancient city of stars known as globular cluster M3.

0:00 Intro
0:12 April planet viewing
1:13 Lyrid meteor shower
2:19 Globular cluster M3
4:26 April Moon phases

Additional information about topics covered in this episode of What’s Up, along with still images from the video, and the video transcript, are available at https://science.nasa.gov/skywatching/whats-up/.

The phases of the Moon for April 2025. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

** What to see in the night sky: April 2025 – BBC Sky at Night Magazine

The planets, the Moon and the Pleiades, plus this month’s best deep-sky objects. Astronomers Pete Lawrence and Paul Abel reveal the best things to see in the night sky, April 2025.

** Sky & Telescope’s Sky Tour Podcast – April 2025 – Sky & Telescope Youtube

Our monthly Sky Tour #astronomy #podcast provides an informative and entertaining 10-minute guided tour of the nighttime sky. In April’s episode, we’ll watch bright planets come and go, track down some celestial carnivores, and enjoy a splash of mid-spring meteors. So grab your curiosity, and come along on this month’s Sky Tour.

See also

** What’s in the Night Sky: April 2025 – National Space Centre

What’s in the Night Sky: March 2025
Lunar occultation of the Pleiades
Sea of Tranquility
Lyrids meteor shower
✨ Constellation of the Month: Lyra

Whether you’re a beginner or an expert, looking at the night sky with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope, check out our tour of the night sky to find out what you can see this month. #WINS #Astronomy #WhatsInTheNightSky

** What’s in the Sky this Month | April 2025 – High Point Scientific on Youtube

In this episode of What’s in the Sky this Month, Teagan reviews some of the beautiful celestial objects you can see in April!

Read the full April 2025 Newsletter: https://www.highpointscientific.com/a…

Looking to expand your astronomy knowledge even further? The Astronomy Hub is the place to learn everything from what’s in the sky this month, to what gear can help you capture the best celestial images. Learn more here ➡️ https://www.highpointscientific.com/a…

Follow us on Instagram / highpointscientific
Follow us on Facebook / highpointscientific
Sign up for our email newsletter https://www.highpointscientific.com/c…

#highpointscientific #astronomy #april

Chapters
00:00 – Introduction
00:33 – The Whirlpool Galaxy
01:41 – Nearest Neighbors
02:49 – Lyrid Meteor Shower
03:38 – Mizar & Alcor
04:21 – The Leo Triplet
05:04 – Cor Caroli
05:31 – Conclusion

** Night Sky Notebook April 2025 – Peter Detterline

** See also:

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Astronomy, Space participation, Space Science

Night sky highlights for March 2025

Check out the night sky this month, March 2025. Here are videos and links to websites highlighting the top sights to observe.

** What’s Up: March 2025 Skywatching Tips from NASA – NASA JPL

Additional information about topics covered in this episode of What’s Up, along with still images from the video, and the video transcript, are available at https://science.nasa.gov/skywatching/whats-up/.

Phases of the Moon during March 2025. Credits. NASA JPL

** Two eclipses visible this month! What to see in the night sky, March 2025 – BBC Sky at Night Magazine

Pete Lawrence and Paul Abel reveal the best things to see in the sky throughout March 2025, including a lunar eclipse and solar eclipse.

** Sky & Telescope’s Sky Tour Podcast – March 2025 – Sky & Telescope Youtube

This month we’ll mark two seasonal transitions, watch eclipses of the Moon and Sun, track down the elusive planet Mercury, and trace out the Winter Hexagon. So grab your curiosity, and come along with Sky & Telescope’s Kelly Beatty on this month’s Sky Tour.

See also

** The Night Sky | March 2025 | Total Lunar Eclipse | Blood Moon | Partial Solar Eclipse – Late Night Astronomy

A total lunar eclipse and partial solar eclipse put on a show for millions of us around the world. Let’s take a look at what you can see in the night sky for March of 2025.

…

Timestamps:
0:00 Total Lunar Eclipse
2:21 Partial Solar Eclipse
3:10 The Planets
4:00 Comets

** What’s in the Sky this Month | March 2025 – High Point Scientific on Youtube

In this episode of What’s in the Sky this Month, Teagan reviews some of the beautiful celestial objects you can see in March!

Read the full March 2025 Newsletter: https://www.highpointscientific.com/a…

Chapters
00:00 – Introduction
00:28 – Nearest Neighbors
01:55 – Total Lunar Eclipse
02:45 – Partial Solar Eclipse
03:26 – Bode’s & Cigar Galaxies
04:09 – Owl Nebula
04:55 – Beehive Cluster
05:18 – Conclusion

** Night Sky Notebook March 2025– Peter Detterline

** See also:

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Astronomy, Exoplanets, Space Science

ESO: First 3D observations of an exoplanet’s atmosphere

A new report from the European Southern Observatory (ESO)

“Out of science fiction”: First 3D observations
of an exoplanet’s atmosphere reveal a unique climate

Tylos (or WASP-121b) is a gaseous, giant exoplanet located some 900 light-years away in the constellation Puppis. Using the ESPRESSO instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), scientists have been able to prove into its atmosphere, revealing its 3D structure. This is the first time that this has been possible on a planet outside of the Solar System.  The atmosphere of Tylos is divided into three layers, with iron winds at the bottom, followed by a very fast jet stream of sodium, and finally an upper layer of hydrogen winds. This kind of climate has never been seen before on any planet.

Astronomers have peered through the atmosphere of a planet beyond the Solar System, mapping its 3D structure for the first time. By combining all four telescope units of the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), they found powerful winds carrying chemical elements like iron and titanium, creating intricate weather patterns across the planet’s atmosphere. The discovery opens the door for detailed studies of the chemical makeup and weather of other alien worlds.

“This planet’s atmosphere behaves in ways that challenge our understanding of how weather works — not just on Earth, but on all planets. It feels like something out of science fiction,”

says Julia Victoria Seidel, a researcher at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile and lead author of the study, published today in Nature.

The planet, WASP-121b (also known as Tylos), is some 900 light-years away in the constellation Puppis. It’s an ultra-hot Jupiter, a gas giant orbiting its host star so closely that a year there lasts only about 30 Earth hours. Moreover, one side of the planet is scorching, as it is always facing the star, while the other side is much cooler.

The team has now probed deep inside Tylos’s atmosphere and revealed distinct winds in separate layers, forming a map of the atmosphere’s 3D structure. It’s the first time astronomers have been able to study the atmosphere of a planet outside our Solar System in such depth and detail.

“What we found was surprising: a jet stream rotates material around the planet’s equator, while a separate flow at lower levels of the atmosphere moves gas from the hot side to the cooler side. This kind of climate has never been seen before on any planet,”

says Seidel, who is also a researcher at the Lagrange Laboratory, part of the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, in France. The observed jet stream spans half of the planet, gaining speed and violently churning the atmosphere high up in the sky as it crosses the hot side of Tylos.

“Even the strongest hurricanes in the Solar System seem calm in comparison,”

she adds.

This diagram shows the structure and motion of the atmosphere of the exoplanet Tylos (WASP-121b). The exoplanet is shown from above in this figure, looking at one of its poles. The planet rotates counter-clockwise, in such a way that it always shows the same side to its parent star, so it’s always day on one half of the planet and night on the other. The transition between night and day is the “morning side” while the “evening side” represents the transition between day and night; its morning side is to the right and its evening side to the left. As the planet crosses in front of its host star, atoms in the planet’s atmosphere absorb specific colours or wavelengths of the star’s light, which can be measured with a spectrograph. From this data –– obtained in this case with the ESPRESSO instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope –– astronomers can reconstruct the composition and velocity of different layers in the atmosphere. The deepest layer is a wind of iron that blows away from the point of the planet where the star is directly overhead. Above this layer there is a very fast jet of sodium that moves faster than the planet rotates. This jet actually accelerates as it moves from the morning side to the evening side of the planet. Finally, there is an upper layer of hydrogen wind blowing outwards. This hydrogen layer overlaps with the sodium jet below it.

To uncover the 3D structure of the exoplanet’s atmosphere, the team used the ESPRESSO instrument on ESO’s VLT to combine the light of its four large telescope units into a single signal. This combined mode of the VLT collects four times as much light as an individual telescope unit, revealing fainter details. By observing the planet for one full transit in front of its host star, ESPRESSO was able to detect signatures of multiple chemical elements, probing different layers of the atmosphere as a result.

“The VLT enabled us to probe three different layers of the exoplanet’s atmosphere in one fell swoop,”

says study co-author Leonardo A. dos Santos, an assistant astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, United States. The team tracked the movements of iron, sodium and hydrogen, which allowed them to trace winds in the deep, mid and shallow layers of the planet’s atmosphere, respectively.

“It’s the kind of observation that is very challenging to do with space telescopes, highlighting the importance of ground-based observations of exoplanets,”

he adds.

Interestingly, the observations also revealed the presence of titanium just below the jet stream, as highlighted in a companion study published in Astronomy and Astrophysics. This was another surprise since previous observations of the planet had shown this element to be absent, possibly because it’s hidden deep in the atmosphere.

“It’s truly mind-blowing that we’re able to study details like the chemical makeup and weather patterns of a planet at such a vast distance,”

says Bibiana Prinoth, a PhD student at Lund University, Sweden, and ESO, who led the companion study and is a co-author of the Nature paper.

To uncover the atmosphere of smaller, Earth-like planets, though, larger telescopes will be needed. They will include ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), which is currently under construction in Chile’s Atacama Desert, and its ANDES instrument.

“The ELT will be a game-changer for studying exoplanet atmospheres,” says Prinoth. “This experience makes me feel like we’re on the verge of uncovering incredible things we can only dream about now.”

Links

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Astronomy, Education, Space participation

Night sky highlights for February 2025

Check out the night sky this month, February 2025. Here are videos and links to websites highlighting the top sights to observe.

** What’s Up: February 2025 Skywatching Tips from NASA – NASA JPL

What are some skywatching highlights in February 2025?

Venus blazes at its brightest in the early evening, despite being only a slim crescent through the telescope eyepiece. Mars and Jupiter to rule the night sky after Venus sets, amid the menagerie of bright winter stars in Orion, Taurus, and Gemini. And enhance your astronomy IQ by knowing the difference between a conjunction and an appulse.

0:00 Intro
0:13 Moon & planets
0:41 Appulses
1:39 Venus at maximum
2:51 February Moon phases

Additional information about topics covered in this episode of What’s Up, along with still images from the video, and the video transcript, are available at https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/skywatch….

Sky chart showing Jupiter and Mars high overhead after nightfall in February. Credits:
NASA/JPL-Caltech

** Venus and Mars dominate the sky. What’s in the night sky tonight, February 2025 – BBC Sky at Night Magazine

Pete Lawrence and Paul Abel reveal what’s visible in the night sky this month, including bright Venus dominating the sky in February 2025. Look out for Venus, Saturn and Uranus near the crescent Moon on the evening of 1 February.

Mars and Jupiter continue to dazzle, a particular highlight being a meeting between Mars and the Moon on 9 February 2025.

Also, February marks a final chance to enjoy and explore the constellation Orion before it disappears from view.

** February Podcast: Planets Amid Winter’s Stars – Sky & Telescope

See also

** What’s in the Night Sky: February 2025 – National Space Centre

What’s in the Night Sky: February 2025

Aristarchus Crater
Moon and Mars
Seven Sisters
✨ Constellation of the Month: Taurus

Whether you’re a beginner or an expert, looking at the night sky with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope, check out our Tour of the Night Sky to find out what you can see this month.
#wins #Astronomy #WhatsInTheNightSky

** What’s in the Sky this Month | February 2025 – High Point Scientific on Youtube

In this episode of What’s in the Sky this Month, Teagan reviews some of the beautiful celestial objects you can see in February!

Read the full February 2025 Newsletter: https://www.highpointscientific.com/a…

Looking to expand your astronomy knowledge even further? The Astronomy Hub is the place to learn everything from what’s in the sky this month, to what gear can help you capture the best celestial images. Learn more here ➡️ https://www.highpointscientific.com/a…

…

Chapters
00:00 – Introduction
00:31 – Moon Occults the Pleiades
01:17 – Nearest Neighbors
02:12 – Clown Face Nebula
03:02 – Messier 50
03:43 – Messier 67
04:15 – Tegmine
04:42 – Conclusion

** Night Sky Notebook February 2025– Peter Detterline

** See also:

=== Amazon Ads ===

Celestron
70mm Travel Scope
Portable Refractor Telescope
Fully-Coated Glass Optics
Ideal Telescope for Beginners
BONUS Astronomy Software Package

—- Books —

Stellaris: People of the Stars

Astronomy, Education, Space participation

Night sky highlights for January 2025

Check out the night sky this month, January 2025. Here are videos and links to websites highlighting the top sights to observe.

** What’s Up: January 2025 Skywatching Tips from NASA – NASA JPL

What are some skywatching highlights in January 2025?

This month, four bright planets greet you in the early evening. Venus and Saturn cozy up on the 17th and 18th, while Mars is at its brightest in the past two years. The Moon occults Mars for those in the U.S. and Eastern Canada on Jan. 13. Plus, the Quadrantid meteors peak on the morning of Jan. 3 before dawn.

0:00 Intro
0:14 Four planets at once
1:02 Venus & Saturn Get Close
1:39 Mars at Opposition
2:31 Quadrantid Meteors Peak
3:07 January Moon phases

Additional information about topics covered in this episode of What’s Up, along with still images from the video, and the video transcript, are available at https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/skywatch….

** What to see in the night sky: January 2025 – BBC Sky at Night Magazine

Pete Lawrence and Paul Abel reveal their pick of the best things to see in the night sky this month, including:

Mars at opposition, Jupiter near Orion, a lunar occultation of Saturn, the Quadrantid meteor shower, the Moon and the Pleiades, and the best deep-sky objects.

** Sky & Telescope’s Sky Tour Podcast – January 2025 – Sky & Telescope Youtube

Our monthly Sky Tour #astronomy #podcast provides an informative and entertaining 12-minute guided tour of the #night #sky. Join us for the January 2025 episode and start the year with a strong #meteor shower, keep tabs on four bright #planets, watch #Mars disappear behind the full Wolf Moon, and focus on #Orion the Hunter and the #Pleiades star cluster. So grab your curiosity, and come along on this month’s Sky Tour.

See also

** What’s in the Night Sky: January 2025 – National Space Centre

Venus and Saturn
Mars at Opposition
Quadrantids Meteor Shower
Clavius Crater

Whether you’re a beginner or an expert, looking at the night sky with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope, check out our Tour of the Night Sky to find out what you can see this month. #WINS #Astronomy #WhatsInTheNightSky

** What’s in the Sky this Month | January 2025 – High Point Scientific on Youtube

In this episode of What’s in the Sky this Month, Teagan reviews some of the beautiful celestial objects you can see in January!

Read the full January 2025 Newsletter: https://www.highpointscientific.com/a…

Looking to expand your astronomy knowledge even further? The Astronomy Hub is the place to learn everything from what’s in the sky this month, to what gear can help you capture the best celestial images. Learn more here ➡️ https://www.highpointscientific.com/a…

…

Chapters
00:00 – Introduction
00:36 – Nearest Neighbors
01:50 – Mars at Opposition
03:02 – Castor
03:31 – Messier 37
03:53 – NGC 2169
04:32 – Gamma Leporis
04:53 – Messier 42
05:53 – Conclusion

** Night Sky Notebook January 2025– Peter Detterline

What’s happening in the sky for January 2025.

** See also:

Sky chart showing the planetary lineup visible after dark in January 2025. Credits:
NASA/JPL-Caltech

 

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==

Stellaris: People of the Stars