Search results for

Everything in nature comes and goes—stars, planets, even our bodies—but what truly endures is repetition. The universe moves to a rhythm: the Sun brings the year’s shortest day on December 21 and its earliest sunset on December 7; the Moon cycles through fullness every 29½ days and repeats its elevation pattern every 18.6 years, reaching an extreme this year. Venus, fading from the morning sky, will return as a brilliant evening star later this winter—part of its elegant 8-year cycle. Saturn’s rings, now edgewise, won’t appear this way again until 2044. Even Earth’s poles follow a 26,000-year rhythm, and we’re now living in the rare moment when Polaris serves as the most perfectly placed North Star in that grand celestial cycle.

As autumn colors reach their peak, it's natural to wonder if the sky can show vivid hues too. Stars emit blue, red, and green light, but our eyes usually see them as white due to the mix. Cooler stars appear redder, while hotter ones lean blue, but the difference is subtle. Stars like Antares (red), Arcturus (orange), and Vega (blue-white) show noticeable color shifts. More intense colors appear when the Sun or Moon is low or during meteor showers, with green shooting stars standing out. The solar maximum has also triggered bright auroras, mostly green but occasionally red, with our eyes more sensitive to green in low light.

It can be tricky to pinpoint the spot directly overhead in the sky, but, you can find it by looking for Deneb, a bright star nearly at the zenith. While not as brilliant as nearby Vega, Deneb is one of the most luminous stars in the sky, shining with the power of 58,000 Suns from 1,500 light-years away. If it were as close as Sirius, its light would outshine our streetlights. Deneb is also significant because it lies in the direction Earth is moving as the Sun carries us around the galaxy at 144 miles per second. Though we’ll never catch it—it’s moving too—it’s still a powerful feeling to look up and point toward the future.

Dan Brown’s new novel, "The Secret of Secrets," marks the return of Robert Langdon, the Harvard symbologist. This time, Langdon’s journey takes him to Prague where a lecture on human consciousness quickly unravels into a mystery involving a vanished scientist, an ancient manuscript, and a secret with world-altering implications.

Pakistan, a country with over a quarter billion people, is one that is extremely vulnerable to climate change. Pakistan, with 25% of its population living in poverty, contributes just 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Nevertheless, it experiences increasingly frequent heatwaves, droughts, and catastrophic floods driven by the changing climate.

(Airs 11/07/25 @ 10 p.m.) The Legislative Gazette is a weekly program about New York State Government and politics. On this week’s Gazette: Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik announces a run for Governor, Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani has been elected mayor of New York City, and The Town of Plattsburgh Supervisor wins a special election for the state assembly.

(Airs 11/06/25 @ 3 p.m.) WAMC’s David Guistina speaks with Yancey Roy, Albany Bureau Chief for Newsday, about this week’s elections, redistricting and more.

On this week's 51%, we recognize Veterans Day and speak with Edie Meeks, a veteran of the Army Nurses Corp who was one of roughly 10,000 nurses to serve in the Vietnam War. From 1968 to 1969, Meeks worked in the Intensive Care Units of the 3rd Field Hospital in Saigon and the 71st Evac Hospital in Pleiku. Now 81, Meeks shares memories of her service — and her struggle to adjust after coming home — in an upcoming episode of the PBS series After Action.

A subpolar gyre is a large-scale ocean current system located at high latitudes created by a persistent region of low atmospheric pressure. These gyres circulate water in a cyclonic direction – counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. This circular motion of water drives the upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich deep water to the surface, which plays an important role in regulating the climate in the higher latitudes as well as the nutrient cycles that sustain ocean ecosystems. Subpolar gyres influence the circulation of other ocean currents like the North Atlantic Current, the East Greenland Current, and the Labrador Current.

(Airs 11/07/25 @ 3 p.m. & 11/09/25 @ 6 p.m.) The Media Project is an inside look at media coverage of current events Judy Patrick, former Editor of the Daily Gazette and former Vice President for Editorial Development for the New York Press Association, and Barbara Lombardo, former Editor of the Saratogian and Adjunct Professor at the University at Albany, and David Guistina, Media Project Producer, Morning Edition Anchor, and Adjunct Professor at the University at Albany. On this week’s Media Project, Judy, Barbara and David talk about coverage of Zohran Mamdami in the New York City Mayoral race, new restrictions for the White House Press Core limiting access to the West Wing, the 60 Minutes interview with President Trump, and more.