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Sky This Week, The Sky This Week

The Sky This Week from September 11 to 18: Catch the zodiacal light

A promotional graphic on a dark blue starfield background. On the left in gold and white text: "Starmus VIII, The Search for Truth," "First Time in Spain, Artemis II Astronauts," the names Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Jeremy Hansen, and "October 2026, Tenerife, Canary Islands." On the right, three astronauts in orange spacesuits with helmets removed stand close together, smiling toward the camera, with a NASA patch and name tag visible on the center suit. A row of small sponsor and institutional logos runs along the bottom.

Artemis 2 crew lands at Starmus VII — 15 years after Armstrong, Aldrin, and Leonov launched its lengacy

An artist's illustration of 'Oumuamua, the first known interstellar object detected passing through the solar system, depicted as a long, thin, reddish-brown elongated rock tumbling through space near a bright glowing sun. A diffuse dust or gas trail streams behind it, and the starry black background of deep space surrounds the scene.

Why aren’t free-floating planets captured when they fly past stars?

Robotic Spaceflight

Scientists watch as two satellites burn

A sky chart showing the eastern sky on September 6, 2026, one hour before sunrise. The crescent Moon glows brightly near the top center with Mars just below and to its right. Castor and Pollux are labeled in the middle left, Jupiter shines as a bright point in the lower left, Procyon is visible to the right, and Betelgeuse glows orange in the upper right corner. The sky fades from deep blue-black above to a subtle twilight glow near the dark horizon silhouette.

Sky This Week, The Sky This Week

The Sky This Week from September 4 to 11: The Moon joins Jupiter and Mars

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

STARMUS Festival cofounders Sir Brian May and Garik Israelian presented Sir Ridley Scott with the 2026 Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication

A detailed telescopic photograph of a total lunar eclipse, showing the Moon glowing in rich shades of deep red, orange, and brown — a blood moon. The Moon's surface features are clearly visible, including craters, ray systems, and dark maria regions. A sliver of brighter white-gray light is visible along the upper edge, indicating the Moon is partially outside Earth's umbral shadow.

Observing, The Moon, Upcoming Events

How to see Thursday’s lunar eclipse

JWST shows astronomers how to make a comet