bright star

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.

White dwarf stars happen to be some of the strangest stars in our galaxy. These nights they can appear during the next clear evening at nightfall orbiting our closest celestial neighbors: the Dog Star Sirius and Procyon, the main star of the Canis Minor constellation.

Starting next week, the nearest star to the Moon will be the bluest of them all, which is Virgo’s brightest star, Spica. Hear why Spica, one of the brightest objects in the constellation of Virgo, is one of the 20 brightest stars in the night sky.

What does a ''producer'' actually do? How does one travel from that great idea for a show to a smash hit opening night on Broadway? John Breglio cannot…