Posts by

Deborah Byrd

Water vapor in atmosphere of exoplanet four times Earth’s size

The exoplanet HAT P-11b - about Neptune's size - has an atmosphere that's cloudless at high altitudes. That's how astronomers could identify water vapor there.

Deborah Byrd

September 24, 2014

Sun kissed

A beautiful photo to honor the sun at the equinox.

Deborah Byrd

September 23, 2014

Time-lapse video of Meadow Fire in Yosemite

The Meadow fire in Yosemite National Park is still burning, but nearly 100 percent contained now. This video by QT Luong shows the beauty and terror of wildfire.

Deborah Byrd

September 22, 2014

Comet C/2012 K1 (PANSTARRS) on September 19

This beautiful comet may be visible with the eye alone around mid-October, but it'll remain much easier to detect using binoculars or a telescope.

Deborah Byrd

September 21, 2014

Space-based particle detector hints at dark matter

A new and tantalizing hint of mysterious dark matter has been found by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer particle detector aboard the International Space Station.

Deborah Byrd

September 19, 2014

Dawn spacecraft to Ceres recovers after malfunctions

A collision with a high-energy radiation particle may have corrupted software running in Dawn's main computer, and sent the spacecraft into safe mode.

Deborah Byrd

September 18, 2014

Fogbow over Massachusetts

Because of the small size of water droplets in fog, a fogbow might have only very weak colors, or no color at all. Colorless fogbows are sometimes called white rainbows.

Deborah Byrd

September 18, 2014

Merging galaxies can produce disk galaxies

Astronomers thought mergers formed giant elliptical galaxies. Now, for at least 24 observed galaxies, mergers have formed flattened, circular disks of dust and gas.

Deborah Byrd

September 17, 2014

Earthquake-induced landslide at Seward Glacier

NASA scientists were in the right place at the right time this summer to capture photos of a fresh landslide, caused by an Alaska earthquake.

Deborah Byrd

September 16, 2014

New catalog of visible Milky Way charts 219 million stars

Astronomers spent 10 years charting stars brighter than 20th magnitude – that's about 1 million times fainter than can be seen with the human eye.

Deborah Byrd

September 16, 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.