Posts by

Deborah Byrd

Bright fireball seen over San Antonio, Texas

Hundreds of sky watchers in Texas reported a bright meteor or fireball Saturday night. It was said to be greenish in color and to rival the brightness of the sun!

Deborah Byrd

November 9, 2014

Coronal loops

The biggest sunspot region in more than two decades produced many impressive solar flares. Just before it disappeared, it also gave us this beautiful display of coronal loops.

Deborah Byrd

November 8, 2014

Nevada earthquake swarm continues

The swarm began on July 12 and has increased in intensity over the past several days.

Deborah Byrd

November 7, 2014

Astonishing image of planet-forming disk from ALMA

It looks like an artist's illustration, but it's a real image and it lets us glimpse the process by which planets are born in orbit around their stars.

Deborah Byrd

November 6, 2014

How G2 survived the black hole at our Milky Way’s heart

Astronomers watched in fascination as an object called G2 appeared to edge closer to our Milky Way's central black hole. But G2 survived!

Deborah Byrd

November 4, 2014

Cassini captures sunglint from Titan’s seas

Here's a newly released color mosaic of Titan - taken in near-infrared part of the spectrum - showing the sun glinting off of Titan's north polar seas. Beautiful!

Deborah Byrd

November 3, 2014

1 dead 1 injured after crash of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane - a craft intended to carry tourists on suborbital flights - exploded and crashed during a test flight Friday.

Deborah Byrd

November 1, 2014

Turquoise-tinted plumes in Large Magellanic Cloud

This image - made with a special filter - shows the outskirts of a much-studied nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, called the Tarantula Nebula.

Deborah Byrd

November 1, 2014

Star system like a wheel within a wheel

Scientists found dust and gas flowing from an outer disk around a star toward a possible second, smaller disk around a second star. Planets may be forming here!

Deborah Byrd

October 31, 2014

Success in the search for quiet, distant quasars

If quasars weren't so luminous, we couldn't see them so far away in space and time. But how about modest quasars, also far away? Astronomers say they've found some.

Deborah Byrd

October 29, 2014

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.