See Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky

Wide array of bright but slightly fuzzy stars, mostly blue-white but one reddish, over dark landscape.

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Sergei Timofeevski shared this image from November 13, 2023. Sergei wrote: “The constellation Orion the Hunter and the star Sirius rising just above the eastern horizon in the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.” Thank you, Sergei! Note bright Sirius is on the bottom, and Orion’s Belt pointing to it. … Read more

The Sky This Week from February 21 to 28: Saturn and Mercury meet

February 24, 2025, 30 minutes after sunset, looking west

Mercury and Saturn stand side by side in the early-evening sky near the end of February. Note that Neptune is not visible to the naked eye. Credit: Astronomy: Roen Kelly Friday, February 21The Moon passes 0.4° south of the bright red giant Antares in Scorpius this morning at 4 A.M. EST. The pair is visible … Read more

Cassiopeia the Queen reigns in the February sky

Cassiopeia: Five labeled stars linked with lines to make the letter W and two tiny, labeled clusters above, on blue background.

You can find Cassiopeia the Queen in the northwest in the evening around the month of February. It’s one of the easiest constellations to spot! It has the shape of an M or W. If you have a dark sky, you can also look above Cassiopeia for a famous binocular object, the Double Cluster in … Read more

7 planets are aligned in the night sky right now. But what’s that mean for science?

eight planets of different sizes orbit around a yellow star in concentric circles

For the last month and change, you might’ve seen the headlines about the planetary alignment, or a planetary parade, going on in our solar system. And that’s true. In January 2025, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were all visible in the night sky. And in February, 2025, Mercury will join the fun, with … Read more

The Winter Triangle meets the ‘Mars Triangle’ in the night sky this month

an illustration of the night sky showing a triangle formed from the two stars castor and pollux and mars

We’re now just past the midpoint of astronomical winter — that moment marking the midway point between December’s winter solstice and March’s vernal equinox. That moment took place at 4:11 p.m. Eastern Time on Feb. 3. And as darkness falls this week, we have what many refer to as the “Winter Triangle” dominating the southeast … Read more

The Sky This Week from February 14 to 21: Venus reaches greatest brilliancy

Venus in the nighttime sky

Caption: Venus is the brightest point of light shining at lower left in this gorgeous astrophoto of the February night sky. Credit: Toby Baier (Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0) Friday, February 14The dwarf planet 1 Ceres is in conjunction with the Sun at 5 P.M. EST today. While this means we can’t see Ceres for now, … Read more

Why is Venus so bright in our Earth’s sky?

Two thin white vertical crescents on a dark background, the right one smaller and fuzzy.

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Karthik Easvur in Delhi, India, captured these 2 images on September 12, 2023. They show a crescent moon – and a crescent planet Venus – on the same evening. “It was just amazing,” he wrote. You need a telescope to see Venus as a crescent. But the planet and … Read more

As the night sky grows crowded, astronomers face a growing problem

For more than five years, astronomers have sounded alarms about the effect satellite megaconstellations would have on their observations. The launch in 2019 of the first Starlink satellites, initially bright enough to be seen by the naked eye, led astronomers to spring to action to both raise awareness about the threat and to work with … Read more