The only child of astronomer William Herschel, John Herschel was born March 7, 1792, in England. After studying mathematics at Cambridge University, Herschel began working with his father from 1816 ...

A team of scientists has confirmed that the nearby star GJ 887 hosts at least four planets, one of which could be a habitable world — the second closest to our own solar system. RELATED: Animal life ...

A total lunar eclipse is the highlight of the month. For planetary action, Jupiter is well placed most of the night and there are many events involving its Galilean moons. Soon after sunset, brilliant ...

Asteroid 7 Iris reaches opposition at 1 P.M. EST today. Now shining at 9th magnitude, you can best spot the main-belt world after dark, rising higher in the hours after sunset. By 10 P.M. local time, ...

The longer nights of August beckon with several treats this month. Saturn and Neptune undergo their second conjunction of the year, appearing together in a low-power telescope eyepiece. Telescopic ...

A newly discovered comet has astronomers excited, with the potential to be a spectacular sight in early April. C/2026 A1 (MAPS) was spotted by a team of four amateur astronomers with a remotely ...

Already high in the east as darkness falls, Jupiter still dominates the constellation Gemini. The gas giant’s large moon Ganymede transits the disk this evening, with its shadow following a few hours ...

On Oct. 10, 1846, William Lassell peered through his 20-foot reflector in Liverpool, England. Lassell was a self-funded amateur astronomer who had made a fortune as a brewer, and he’d built his own ...

In this episode, Astronomy magazine Editor Emeritus Dave Eicher invites you to head out on the evening of March 8 to see a close grouping of two planets. This time, brilliant Venus — the ...

A recent story in The Planetary Science Journal reported that scientists at the National Air and Space Museum’s Center for Earth and Planetary Studies and colleagues have produced the first global map ...

February 24 was the date a new information pipeline began for astronomers around the world. Their computers received a deluge of cosmic notifications — 800,000 alerts about new asteroids, supernovae, ...

We are quickly losing sight of Saturn in the evening sky — tonight, take some time to glimpse the glorious ringed planet before it gets too low in the west. An hour after sunset, Venus and Mercury ...