NASA

Some planets are easy to find in the night sky, while only one is usually difficult. That’s because Venus, Jupiter, and Mars at their closest are all brighter than any star, plus Mars has an obvious orange color. Mercury always has a distinctive position low in morning or evening twilight. But Saturn doesn’t readily stand out. Tune in to hear how you can find Saturn.

This week we’ll see a Perseid meteor shower. But if clouds spoil the spectacle for you, there will be lingering meteors. This shower’s intensity falls off rapidly after peak, so later you might only see a meteor every 3 minutes after midnight. Tune in to hear about the reddish stars and what to check for the in the sky!

A century ago the famed astronomer Percival Lowell believed an unknown “planet X” was gravitationally tugging on Uranus and Neptune. So the wealthy Lowell founded an Arizona observatory to try to detect this ninth planet. We’re reminded of all this because this past week is when Pluto has come to its closest to Earth of 2024.

One of the all-time lowest Full Moons you’ll ever see graces us this month, but the real fun happens a few nights from then as the “star” closest to the Moon, Saturn, is at its biggest and brightest of the entire year. Hear how to spot Saturn and why it’s hard to locate.

Bastille Day is here and we had our own Independence Day fireworks just recently as well. So speaking of explosions, unimaginable violence is up in the sky too – and keeps happening. The greatest are supernovas. Tune in to hear how these cause a star’s total destruction.

What a year we’re having. First we got to see a super-rare total solar eclipse, when the Moon completely covered the Sun. And now this week, almost as rare, the Moon will eclipse a far more distant star, a famous blue one. When a star is blocked by the Moon, it’s called an occultation, and it rarely happens to one of the few truly bright stars that happen to be positioned along the Moon’s path.

All the interactions in the universe can be explained by gravity, electromagnetism, and the two forces, strong and weak, that operate only within atoms. This week: The String Theory.

For the first time since 1985, the Full Moon happens precisely on the summer solstice. Tune in to hear the process of the moon’s explosive brightening.

The June Full Moon, coming up this Thursday night, will be very strange. For the first time since 1985, Full Moon happens precisely on the summer solstice. As it approaches that rare milestone, check it out on June 18, because that marks the turning point in the moonlight department.

On Tuesday night the crescent Moon hovers next to the famous blue star Regulus. As the brightest luminary in Leo the Lion, the ancient Persians considered it one of the “four royal stars,” famous for sitting in the center of the zodiac, which is why it sometimes meets the Moon.