Posts by

Deborah Byrd

The UK had a red sun Monday

Social media was buzzing on Monday with photos and accounts of the red sun over the UK. British weather forecasters said it was dust from the Sahara, raised via Hurricane Ophelia.

Deborah Byrd

October 16, 2017

Egg-shaped Haumea has a ring

Dwarf planet Haumea - which orbits our sun in Pluto's realm of the solar system - has become the first trans-Neptunian object known to be encircled by a ring.

Deborah Byrd

October 16, 2017

Big Dipper over Horseshoe Spring, Utah

The famous Big Dipper asterism, caught mirrored in Horseshoe Spring, one of many natural hot springs in Utah’s West Desert.

Deborah Byrd

October 16, 2017

Intense storms batter Saturn moon Titan

“I would have thought these would be once-a-millennium events, if even that,” said a researcher. Instead, the storms on Titan happen about once a Saturn-year, creating massive floods in an otherwise-desert terrain.

Deborah Byrd

October 14, 2017

ISS over Puget Sound, Washington

Photographer John Nelson used NASA's SpotTheStation website to learn when the International Space Station would make a high pass in his sky. This image is the result.

Deborah Byrd

October 14, 2017

Peering to the Milky Way’s far side

Astronomers use parallax to directly measure the distance to a star-forming region on the opposite side of our Milky Way galaxy, nearly doubling the previous distance record.

Deborah Byrd

October 14, 2017

Rainbow with anticrepuscular rays

Karl Diefenderfer must have been looking east at sunset on October 9, in order to photograph this rainbow with anticrepuscular rays, caught "as the remnants of hurricane Nate left southeastern Pennsylvania."

Deborah Byrd

October 13, 2017

Asteroid to sweep close October 11-12

Asteroid 2012 TC4 is being used as a test of Earth's global asteroid defense system. How to see it online.

Eddie Irizarry

Deborah Byrd

October 11, 2017

Secret Antarctic ice canyons revealed

Ice shelves in Antarctica are like conveyor belts, continually carrying ice to the sea. Scientists have found hidden canyons on their undersides that may affect the shelves fragility.

Deborah Byrd

October 11, 2017

Red sprite over Oklahoma

Photographer Paul Smith said he thinks this may be the 1st documented capture of a red sprite over Oklahoma. They're large-scale electrical discharges - high above thunderstorm clouds - flickering in the night.

Deborah Byrd

October 11, 2017

Deborah Byrd

Deborah Byrd (asteroid 3505 Byrd) helps edit EarthSky.org and is a frequent host of EarthSky videos. Deborah created the EarthSky radio series in 1991 and founded EarthSky.org in 1994. Prior to that, she had worked for the University of Texas McDonald Observatory since 1976, and created and produced their Star Date radio series. She has won a galaxy of awards from the broadcasting and science communities, including having an asteroid named in her honor in 1990, a Public Service Award from the National Science Board in 2003, and the Education Prize from the American Astronomical Society in 2020. A science communicator and educator since 1976, Byrd believes in science as a force for good in the world and a vital tool for the 21st century. "Being an EarthSky editor is like hosting a big global party for cool nature-lovers," she says.