Posts by 

Deborah Byrd

Crack advances across Antarctic ice shelf

Satellite images of the crack in Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf. If it breaks off, it'll make an ice island in the Southern Ocean as large as one of the smallest U.S. states.

Pluto ‘paints’ its largest moon red

"Who would have thought that Pluto is a graffiti artist, spray-painting its companion with a reddish stain that covers an area the size of New Mexico?"

2016 Harvest Moon penumbral eclipse

There will be a subtle penumbral lunar eclipse of the 2016 Harvest Moon, visible from half of Earth, unfortunately not North America. Details here.

Probably no La Niña in late 2016

An extremely strong El Niño was in progress earlier this year. Historically, some are followed by a La Niña, but ocean temps suggest … not this year.

When the night dies

A beautiful twilight image from a photographer in Sweden.

What if all of Earth’s ice melted?

What would Earth be like if all of its ice melted? New short video from the guys at AsapSCIENCE, featuring Bill Nye.

Star trails over a French castle

The castle of Brochon in Gevrey-Chambertin - in the Burgundy region of eastern France - was built from 1895 to 1898. Photo by Jean-Baptiste Feldmann.

Impossibly bright monster pulsars

Astronomers in Japan used a supercomputer and a hypothetical neutron star to explain blinking, enigmatic objects known as Ultra Luminous X-ray pulsars.

Crazy airglow

Airglow over Acadia National Park earlier this month, as a tropical storm raged in the Atlantic. Can a storm cause airglow? An expert comments.

Glorious new images show Titan’s dunes

Cassini spacecraft will begin its grand finale at Saturn in 2017. This was one of Cassini's last close flybys of Saturn's large moon, Titan.