Posts by

Deborah Byrd

Video: Rosetta’s race to map its comet

Last week, Rosetta became the first spacecraft ever to rendezvous with a comet. Now the spacecraft is in a race against time. Rosetta's next challenges, here.

Deborah Byrd

August 11, 2014

Best photos: It was a super supermoon!

The August 10, 2014 supermoon was the closest, brightest supermoon of 2014. Enjoy these photos from friends in the EarthSky community.

Deborah Byrd

August 11, 2014

Weak supernova might have left zombie star

Astronomers used Hubble Space Telescope images to spot a star system that could have left behind a "zombie star" after an unusually weak supernova explosion.

Deborah Byrd

August 9, 2014

Astronomers watch as storms swirl on distant Uranus

Uranus - the sideways planet - has a weird spin and the strangest seasons of any of our solar system's planets. Astronomers called this week's storms "surprising."

Deborah Byrd

August 9, 2014

Waxing toward a supermoon, with rainbow

Kimmie Randall caught this photo of Thursday night's gibbous moon, waxing toward the supermoon ... with a portion of a rainbow. Beautiful!

Deborah Byrd

August 9, 2014

Rosetta’s rendezvous with a comet

The Rosetta spacecraft has succeessfully completed its historic approach to Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko and is now traveling in tandem with the comet.

Deborah Byrd

August 7, 2014

Curiosity rover tracks on Mars, August 4, 2014

Today is the second anniversary of the Mars rover Curiosity's landing inside the Martian Gale Crater on August 5, 2012, PDT (Aug. 6, 2012, EDT).

Deborah Byrd

August 6, 2014

Saturn kisses the dark edge of the moon

Astrophotographer Colin Legg in Western Australia caught the August 4, 2014 occultation of Saturn by the moon. He called it "a brilliant thing to watch."

Deborah Byrd

August 5, 2014

For two weeks last August, all hell broke loose on Jupiter’s moon Io

The energy emitted by these volcanic eruptions implies lava fountains gushing at a huge volume per second, forming lava flows that quickly spread over Io's surface.

Deborah Byrd

August 4, 2014

Lifeform of the week: Florida manatee

Manatees and elephants have a common ancestor, and both have uncommonly shaped spherical hearts. Check out this sweet video from Three Sisters Springs, Crystal River, Florida.

Deborah Byrd

August 4, 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.