Posts by

Deborah Byrd

Venus and the Pleiades before dawn

Venus - the brightest planet - is in the east before dawn now. Chirag Upreti caught Venus on July 22 over Acadia National Park in Maine. The dipper-shaped cluster above it is the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters.

Deborah Byrd

July 27, 2017

How many distant comets?

Mysterious long-period comets might be more common - and bigger - than astronomers thought. Studies like this one will help reveal what kind of hazard they might pose.

Deborah Byrd

July 25, 2017

Haze on Saturn’s horizon

Spectacular recent image from the Cassini spacecraft, now in its Grand Finale year around Saturn, taken from just above Saturn's cloudtops, showing haze on the planet's horizon.

Deborah Byrd

July 25, 2017

ISS photobombs a lightning storm

See it scooting along the top of this image, taken last week by Susan Gies Jensen? She also made a video from her still images. See it here, and learn to spot the station.

Deborah Byrd

July 24, 2017

Hubble sees Phobos orbiting Mars

This image and video aren't artists' illustrations. They're from a real time-lapse sequence of images - acquired by the Hubble Space Telescope - of the tiny moon Phobos orbiting Mars. Cool!

Deborah Byrd

July 22, 2017

See it! Moon sweeps past Venus

People around the world watched this week as the waning crescent moon swept near the very bright planet Venus, and fainter star Aldebaran, in the east before dawn.

Deborah Byrd

July 20, 2017

The Day the Earth Smiled

A mosaic of people on Earth waving at Saturn on July 19, 2013, the day Earth smiled. NASA called it "a global moment of cosmic self-awareness."

Deborah Byrd

July 19, 2017

Have you seen the Mayak satellite?

On July 14, an amateur group in Russia launched a small satellite called Mayak. They said it would become the "brightest shooting star" in the sky. Why'd they do it? Here's how to look for it.

Deborah Byrd

July 18, 2017

Rainbow and road

Photo by Mike Taylor, who is based in Maine. He calls this photo Innuendo.

Deborah Byrd

July 17, 2017

Moon shadow versus sun reflection

This 5-second video shows a reflected image of the sun - a sun glint - as a bright spot crossing Earth from right to left. It also shows a dark spot - the moon's shadow - moving the opposite way.

Deborah Byrd

July 17, 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.