planet

The Northeast U.S. is now in its single season that’s cloudy and windy, which might remind us of worlds where no breeze has ever stirred, where dust lies flat for billions of years. That’s what the Apollo astronauts saw. Tune in to hear about the characteristics of the planets: Mercury, Earth, Venus and of course we’ll talk about the Moon.

On Mars, the curiosity rover's methane-sniffing instrument turned up nothing at all — dashing hopes of finding bacteria, which can produce methane. The search was inspired by Martian ancient history — since it was a very different place in the distant past. Hear how we’re still looking for life elsewhere.

With the current Moon a thin crescent that sets before nightfall, we can be thinking about dark skies and the Northern Lights. Of course, it’s the Sun’s activity that controls the aurora, not our calendar, so if a strong solar flare or even more powerful coronal mass ejection blasts tons of the Sun’s charged particles in our direction, we’ll likely get auroras a couple of days later. Tune in to hear about the aurora avalanche!

The constellation Cancer, which is out these nights near the Moon and the bright planet Jupiter, contains a smudgy object called the Beehive cluster, which was noted throughout history as a blob. Yet people with normal eyesight can gloriously split it into individual stars. Tune in to learn how.

Despite all the media attention focused on various full Moons – like saying it’s the wolf Moon or strawberry Moon or what-have-you, there are really only two officially recognized Full Moons. There’s the Harvest Moon, which is the Full Moon closest to the autumn equinox, and there’s the next Full Moon after that – the Hunters Moon. And That’s what we’re seeing this week.

These nights the first few hours after nightfall let us see the brightest part of our galaxy. The next night it’s clear, you’ll find the Moon is absent. So if you’re away from city lights and you let your eye dark adapt for a few minutes, you’ll see the creamy glow of the Milky Way right overhead, splitting the sky in half from north to south. Tune in to hear what you need to catch that perfect glimpse of the stellar night sky.

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.

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.

The full moon is of course the most celebrated lunar phase, and for good reason. It’s the brightest, and it’s the only phase that’s out all night long.

You probably can’t see it from your backyard. Since all the amazing stuff happens only during totality, definitely drive into the published path if the weather forecast looks good.