What is the Milky Way?

When someone says “Milky Way,” do you think of the starry pathway across our sky, or of the great pinwheel-shaped galaxy in space? Both are correct! Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/what-is-the-milky-way-galaxy…

China’s Chang’e 5 moon craft on a new mission: the sun

China’s Chang’e 5 moon mission – which successfully returned moon rocks to Earth in December, 2020 for the first time in 44 years – is now headed toward the Earth-sun Lagrange point, for the goal of making sun observations. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/china-change-5-moon-mission-extended-to-l1-sun…

The myths behind the southern and northern lights

For millennia, humans have viewed the northern and southern lights – aurora borealis and aurora australis – and created myths and folklore to explain the dancing lights they saw in the sky. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/legends-folklore-myths-northern-southern-lights-auroras…

Last quarter moon and Spica mornings of January 6 and 7

Use the moon to guide your eye to Spica before daybreak on January 6 and 7, 2021, and look forward to this star’s all-night appearance in April. Source: https://earthsky.org/tonight/moon-spica-from-late-night-till-dawn…

220 years ago today: 1st asteroid discovered

Giuseppe Piazzi discovered the asteroid Ceres – now considered a dwarf planet – on January 1, 1801. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/jan-1-1801-discovery-of-ceres…

Aiming for the moon with NASA’s Artemis I

Artemis I is the first in a series of NASA missions that will enable human exploration on the moon again, and ultimately Mars, scheduled to launch in 2021. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/all-about-nasa-artemis-1-mission…

China’s Chang’e 5 mission is orbiting the moon!

China’s robotic Chang’e 5 will be the 1st sample-return from the moon since the 1970s. It launched successfully last week atop a Chinese Long March 5 rocket. Now it’s reported to have entered orbit around the moon. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/china-moon-mission-change-5-sample-return…

China Launches Ambitious Mission To Land On Moon and Return Samples To Earth

BeerFartMoron shares a report from CBS News: China launched its most ambitious moon mission yet Monday: a robotic spacecraft expected to land on the lunar surface by the end of the week. The spacecraft is expected to collect about four pounds of rock and soil samples, and return them to Earth next month for laboratory analysis. If successful, the Chang’e 5…