Posts by

Deborah Byrd

See the horse in this lightning?

Pareidolia is seeing familiar objects or patterns in otherwise random or unrelated objects or patterns ... like seeing a horse in lightning.

Eleanor Imster

Deborah Byrd

September 10, 2016

Fun! Enterprise Nebulae

More examples of pareidolia, seeing familiar objects in unrelated patterns. These 2 nebulae will be close to the hearts of Star Trek fans.

Deborah Byrd

September 9, 2016

Mars, Saturn, Antares and the moon

September 8 planets and moon, plus the star Antares. In time-exposure photos like this one, the streaks result from Earth's spin.

Deborah Byrd

September 8, 2016

A comeback for humpback whales

The international moratorium on whale-hunting is still in place, but - good news - some whales are coming off the U.S. endangered species list.

Deborah Byrd

September 8, 2016

See asteroid mission launch September 8

NASA's first sample return mission to an asteroid launches Thursday at 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 UTC). Links here to follow the mission online.

Deborah Byrd

Eleanor Imster

September 8, 2016

A rare relic of the early Milky Way

Terzan 5 looks like an ordinary globular cluster, but has stars of hugely different ages. Some of its stars are similar to the Milky Way's most ancient stars.

Deborah Byrd

September 7, 2016

Brown dwarfs hiding in plain sight

Brown dwarfs are like stars, but too small to ignite fusion in their cores and so shine as stars do. If you saw one, it wouldn't be brown. It'd be magenta.

Deborah Byrd

September 7, 2016

Moon, Venus and sleeping giants

A wonderful capture of this weekend's view of the moon and planet Venus, with the famous iconic statues of Easter Island.

Deborah Byrd

September 6, 2016

Philae comet lander … found!

With only a month left of the Rosetta mission, the Philae comet lander has been found wedged into a dark crack on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

Deborah Byrd

September 5, 2016

A quasar Milky Way six million years ago?

As the first human ancestors walked the Earth, our galaxy's central black hole might have been in the process of blasting away most of the galaxy's normal matter.

Deborah Byrd

September 4, 2016

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.