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Top Stories

How Roman will unlock the universe

Robotic Spaceflight, Science

Roman Space Telescope lifts off

Human Spaceflight, Science

Microbes may make it on the Moon

Astrophotography, Telescopes and Equipment

ZWO unveils the Seestar S50 Pro

Picture of the Day

A cloud of green and gold gas fills most of the frame, with a bright blue oval structure stretching across the middle. Dark dust lanes thread through the brighter regions, and a small cluster of stars glows at the lower right.

Clawing through Cassiopeia

Luigi La Bella from Melilli, Italy

The Lobster Claw Nebula (Sharpless 2-157) is a faint emission nebula straddling the constellations Cassiopeia and Cepheus. This complex of gas and dust has been sculpted by the massive stars of the Cassiopeia OB2 association — including the Wolf-Rayet star WR 157 — whose winds carve its ring-shaped northern half (at right). The photographer combined 37.2 hours of exposure in the Hubble palette with a 4.7-inch f/5.6 refractor.

In the Sky

A sky chart showing the western sky on September 2, 2026, one hour after sunset. Venus shines brilliantly low in the center of the image, with the star Spica labeled as a smaller blue-white point just above it. Compared to two nights prior, both objects have shifted noticeably lower toward the horizon. The sky fades from deep blue-black above to a warm brown-orange twilight glow near the dark horizon silhouette.

The Sky Today on Wednesday, September 2: Venus south of Spica

What’s Launching This Week

What’s Launching This Week

Norway, India, and New Zealand target launches as Starlink continues

Today in the History of Astronomy

A wide night landscape view shows rocky, tree-lined mountains stretched across the center with foliage illuminated by warm yellow-orange light in the foreground. Above the dark ridge, the night sky transitions from teal green on the upper left to a vivid, glowing crimson and orange hue filling the right side, all filled with a dense field of tiny stars. A vertical line of brighter white stars stands out clearly against the colorful sky backdrop.

Today in the History of Astronomy

Sept. 2, 1859: The Carrington Event peaks

More News

A composite photograph showing a lunar analemma — a sequence of Moon images captured at the same time over multiple nights — tracing a graceful figure-eight shaped arc across the night sky above the illuminated skyline of Giza, Egypt, with the three Great Pyramids silhouetted against the city's orange glow. The Moon's phases progress and change in size throughout the sequence, reflecting its varying distance and illumination over the course of the observation period.

Solar System, The Moon

Why doesn’t the moonrise time change by the same amount of time each day?

A pale blue Neptune centered against a dark gray background, showing faint darker banding and a bright wispy cloud feature near its equator.

September 2026: What’s in the sky this month? Neptune reaches opposition with Saturn nearby, and Venus shines after sunset

Human Spaceflight

Cast your vote to name Virgin Galactic’s next spaceplane

A panoramic twilight photograph taken along the rocky shore of the Salish Sea, looking west across calm water that mirrors the vivid sunset colors. Venus and Spica are visible as two close points of light in the deep blue sky above the center of the scene. The horizon glows in brilliant bands of orange and yellow, fading upward through purple to deep blue, with silhouetted clouds stretched across the middle sky. A silhouetted house is visible on the left, dark rocky outcroppings frame the foreground, and a distant mountain range is outlined against the orange glow on the right.

Sky This Week, The Sky This Week

The Sky This Week from August 28 to September 4: Venus and Spica meet

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