Stories by Phil Plait

It’s neither fast nor food, but a spectacular object called HH 30 looks appetizing for astronomers in a new image from the James Webb Space Telescope

“Keep your eye on the ball” is a motto for many athletes—and for astronomers trying to find Earth-threatening space rocks

The number of planets that orbit the sun depends on what you mean by “planet,” and that’s not so easy to define

This year, from Earth’s perspective, Saturn’s rings will appear nearly edge on, making them almost invisible

A little-known chapter of the Hubble Space Telescope’s history is a reminder of the risks of looking at the sun

The heavens will provide a bounty of viewing treasures in the coming year

The familiar zodiac constellations are defined by Earth’s motion around the sun, but they don’t define your fate

Twenty years ago today a magnetar’s epic tantrum made our planet ring like a bell from tens of thousands of light-years away

With billions of stars in the Milky Way, some nomenclature standardization is necessary

The celestial equivalent to latitude and longitude lets astronomers find their way across the heavens

Barnard 68 is often mistaken for a hole in space, but it’s actually a dense, opaque cloud of dust—for now

“Twilight rays” are but one of several viewing treats for the liminal time between day and night

Called Olbers’ paradox, the seemingly simple mystery of the sky’s darkness is something that stumped astronomers for centuries

Finding a perfect sphere is actually pretty difficult

The Martian new year arrives with the Red Planet’s vernal equinox. Explaining why requires a deep dive into celestial mechanics and Earth’s calendrical history

At dusk and dawn, the sky dances with three phases of in-between light

If you’ve ever seen faces in clouds, these heavenly entities will leave you haunted

The rising moon looks huge on the horizon, but it’s all in your head

The famous exploding star T Coronae Borealis is due to detonate any day now, but it’s running a little late

The night sky isn’t perfectly dark—instead it glows faintly, and the source isn’t exactly local

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) could soon shine very bright in Earth’s skies

Scientists are putting a new spin on the creation of binary asteroids

Supermoons are popular in the media, but are they really so different from how our extraordinary moon ordinarily appears?

Wispy whorls on the moon’s surface are as lovely as they are strange. Scientists are starting to unravel their origins