Posts by 

Deborah Byrd

Ferret and stars in Montana

Montana's rarest native animal, a black-footed ferret, surfaces on a starry night.

Popocatépetl volcano hurls rock and fire

Awesome videos showing the fiery eruption of Mexico’s Popocatépetl volcano, which began Monday morning.

See it! Moon sweeps past Jupiter

The moon swept past Jupiter over the past few nights. Check out these photos from the EarthSky community.

An inconspicuous comet

Many hoped Comet 252P/LINEAR would become visible to the eye. It has, but only barely. Enjoy photos from the few, the proud, who've captured this comet on film!

Gravity lens reveals dwarf dark galaxy

A detailed analysis of an image of the gravitational lens SDP.81 has indicated the presence of a dark dwarf galaxy, four billion light-years away.

Powerful earthquakes in Japan and Ecuador

Japan was struck by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake on April 15, 2016. One day later, on April 16, Ecuador was struck by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake.

Why are these black hole jets aligned?

The only way for this alignment to exist is if the supermassive black holes in this part of space are all spinning in the same direction.

Giant sunspot turns toward Earth

Sun-watchers have had their eye on giant sunspot AR2529. Check out these photos from the EarthSky community. Aurora alert for April 13!

Mars rover up high, spies a dust devil

After making the steep-ever climb of any rover on Mars, Opportunity looked back along its own tracks toward a swirling Martian dust devil in the valley below.

Stars strip atmospheres of super-Earths

The planets are 2-10 times as massive as Earth. They orbit near their stars and receive some 650 times the radiation that Earth receives from our sun.