Astronomy
Study of celestial objects and phenomena
Latest stories
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Ask the Meteorologist: What to know about Thursday night's partial lunar eclipse
96% of the moon will appear red shortly after midnight Thursday into Friday.
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Ask the Meteorologist: How can we be so hot when we're farthest from the sun in our orbit?
Earth reaches aphelion, its farthest point from the sun, on Monday, July 6.
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Hitting the pause button on the sun
The summer solstice marks a brief celestial pause, when both the sun’s northward march across the sky and the steady lengthening of daylight slow to nearly a standstill before reversing direction toward autumn and winter.
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Look up for the May blue micro moon
“Once in a blue moon” has become synonymous with something rare, yet the astronomical event itself is neither especially unusual nor related to the Moon’s color.
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Heads up! Lyrid meteor shower begins its annual peak Tuesday night
The Lyrid meteor shower typically results in seeing 10 meteors per hour under ideal conditions.
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Ask the Meteorologist: What makes Tuesday morning's lunar eclipse rare?
The sun will be rising at the same time that the lunar eclipse is at peak, setting up a potentially rare sight.
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Astronomy Days 2026 postponed (again)
Winter weather has forced the annual 2-day event which draws thousands to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences to be rescheduled to February 7 & 8
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The nearly full moon shows the way to the Pleiades on New Years Eve
On Tuesday and Wednesday nights, the waxing gibbous Moon will be separated by less than a degree from the Pleiades, an open star cluster rich in star stories.
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Ask the Meteorologist: Why are we seeing the aurora more in the last year or so?
The northern lights are being seen more now. It's due to solar science but also due to advancements in technology.
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Round 2: Northern Lights may shine again in Wednesday night sky
After an impressive showing Tuesday night, the Aurora may once again put on a show Wednesday night. But there's one caveat.
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Northern Lights visible Tuesday night across parts of North Carolina
A pair of coronal mass ejections heading toward Earth produced the aurora farther south, but there are some question marks too.
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Space weather like Tuesday's double solar whammy is hard to predict
Space weather forecasters are watching for a pair of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) to arrive Tuesday night.
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Ask the Meteorologist: Why is November's supermoon considered the brightest of 2025?
The November 5 supermoon is being touted as the brightest one of 2025.
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Eclipse season begins this month
Lunar and solar eclipses happen several times each year, but only during eclipse seasons like the one this month.
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Four planets lineup before dawn
Mercury makes four early this week as Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn shine in the predawn sky in September.
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Look up this week for orangey Mars and blue Regulus
the bright star Regulus points the way to see Mars rust before your eyes
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Ask the Meteorologist: Could North Carolina see the Northern Lights Sunday night?
Another solar flare directed toward Earth could result in an auroral display for parts of the U.S.
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Decades-Old Soviet Space Probe Poised for Fiery Reentry
The U.S. Space Force and other international space agencies are closely monitoring what could be a dramatic reentry of a long-abandoned Soviet spacecraft.
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Burst of solar wind triggers planetary scale heat-wave in Jupiter's upper atmopshere.
Research published by scientists in England found a 2017 solar event compressed Jupiter's magnetic field, setting off aurora at the poles and heating in the upper atmosphere that spread across the planet.
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Astronomy hoaxes and April Fools Day
Let's celebrate April first as "Healthy Skepticism Day", especially with fantastical astronomy stories and images online
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New research finds a cosmic seed for lightning in thunderstoms
When researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory visualized data from the first few nanoseconds of a lightning, they cosmic rays may answer a long debated question about what triggers the tremendous release of energy during thunderstorms.
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Four (not five) planets are visible in the evening sky through February
Four planets will shine brightly in a line each evening in January through mid February. But it's not a "planetary alignment"
