Kochab and Pherkad are the outer stars in the bowl of the Little Dipper.Meet Kochab and Pherkad Tonight, find the stars Kochab and Pherkad in the Little Dipper. You can’t ever find the Little Dipper? That’s because it’s fainter and looks less like a dipper than the Big Dipper. The Big Dipper appears high in the northeast sky at nightfall on spring evenings. And it wheels above Polaris at late evening. So, how do you find Polaris? If you draw an imaginary line between the two outer stars in the bowl of the Big Dipper and extend that line northward on the sky’s dome, you’ll come to Polaris, the ..read more

EarthSky’s Deborah Byrd created this 1-minute video summary for you on Gaia BH3! The most massive stellar black hole in the Milky Way is now Gaia BH3. It has a mass 33 times that of our sun. Gaia BH3 is located 2,000 light-years away in the constellation Aquila, making it the 2nd-closest known black hole to Earth. The discovery challenges previous theories, suggesting that high-mass black holes may form from metal-poor stars, supported by Gaia’s observation of a metal-poor companion star to Gaia BH3. EarthSky needs YOUR help to keep going. Your support, comments, photos, suggestions for sto ..read more

Much of the U.S. warmed during the 20th century. But the eastern part of the country remained mysteriously cool. Now a new study suggests that a century of forest growth, due to widespread reforestation, likely helped keep the eastern U.S. cool as the rest of the country warmed. Image via Pexels/ Lauri Poldre. AGU posted this story originally, earlier this year. Edits by EarthSky. Widespread 20th-century reforestation in the eastern United States helped counter rising temperatures due to climate change, according to new research. The authors highlight the potential of forests as regional clima ..read more

EarthSky’s Deborah Byrd created this 1-minute video summary for you. How Pluto got its heart! New insights on the origin of Pluto’s heart-shaped feature came from scientists using numerical simulations. They said a cataclysmic collision created the western lobe of Pluto’s heart, called Sputnik Planitia. The impacting body was over 400 miles in diameter. It altered Pluto’s inner structure. These scientists now doubt Pluto has a subsurface ocean. Their simulations suggest the heart’s formation and position on Pluto can explained by a local mass excess from the impact, rather than ocean dynamic ..read more

View larger. | Here’s the Mars rock known as Bunsen Peak. The white hole on the left is the drill hole, left by NASA’s Perseverance rover. The white hole on the right is where the rover first abraded or rubbed the rock. This rock is rich in carbonate and silica. Those are clues it was once drenched in water. Mission scientists said it likely originated on an ancient lakeshore beach. If so, it’d be ideal for preserving traces of microscopic Martian life. Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ ASU/ MSSS. NASA’s Perseverance rover has sampled a Mars rock called Bunsen Peak. The rock is of high interest to ..read more

New features detected by Webb are superimposed in orange on HL Tauri and its protoplanetary disk, located 357 light-years from Earth. The image reveals material in the envelope immediately surrounding the young star, apart from the larger disk. There is also an opening formed by material flowing out of the system. HL Tauri was one of the targets imaged by NASA’s Webb Space Telescope in its search for baby planets in young planetary systems. Image via Camryn Mullin et al./ The Astronomical Journal/ University of Arizona (CC BY 4.0). The James Webb Space Telescope has now acquired images of thr ..read more

Seismologist Lucy Jones is the author of The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us (And What We Can Do About Them). Image via Penguin Random House. Kelly Kizer Whitt recommends The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us (And What We Can Do About Them), a book by world-known earthquake scientist Lucy Jones. What many of us think of as disasters – earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, and volcanoes – are natural events. The resulting disaster isn’t inevitable. Jones discusses some of the “big ones” that changed our world and how we can work to prevent the disaster. The Big ..read more

The large asteroid 2013 NK4 (shown in white) has an elliptical orbit that takes it past the orbit of Mars (red) and in between the orbits of Venus (pink) and Mercury (purple). It orbits the sun every 378 days. It’ll safely pass Earth on Monday, April 15, 2024. Image via NASA.Large asteroid will safely pass Earth A large space rock will safely pass our planet on April 15, 2024, and it’s even big enough to see using a small telescope. The asteroid is named 2013 NK4. It has a diameter of 2,000 feet (610 meters). That makes it about twice as large as Apophis, the so-called Doomsday Asteroid that w ..read more

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Abhijit Patil captured this Milky Way panorama reflected in the temporary lake at Death Valley National Park on April 7, 2024. Abhijit wrote: “I don’t know when I’ll visit the Uyuni salt flats in Bolivia, but I could finally fulfill my dream shot in the salt flats at Death Valley. … The water levels in the salt flats had receded far inward.” Thank you, Abhijit!Heavy rainfall leads to wildflower blooms in Death Valley As of April, 2024, temporary lake in Death Valley National Park at the Badwater Basin has receded quite a bit, but it’s still there. And recen ..read more

View larger. | False-color view of the water vapor plumes on Enceladus, which Cassini took on November 27, 2005. The colors are enhanced to help show individual plumes. Now, a new study of Cassini data has found evidence for sub-micrometer particles in the plumes that are the same size as some bacterial cells in hydrothermal vents in Earth’s oceans. There is also evidence for similar vents on Enceladus’ seafloor. So, could these particle possibly be microbes? Image via NASA/ JPL/ Space Science Institute. Previously undetected sub-micrometer particles have now been identified in the water vapo ..read more