Posts by 

Deborah Byrd

Here’s a portrait of a family of stars

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope was used to create this large mosaic of stars and dust clouds in the direction of the constellation Cepheus. Here are multiple star clusters - young, middle-aged and older - born from the same dense clumps of gas and dust.

Meteor Crater, Arizona

Joe Neeley captured the Milky Way over Meteor Crater, Arizona, on June 1, 2019, after holding a 2nd annual photography night at the crater last weekend.

Curiosity sees noctilucent clouds shining in Mars’ sky

Late last month, the Curiosity rover picked up wonderful images of noctilucent - or "night-shining" - clouds in the Martian sky. Plus - if you're at a high latitude on Earth now - it's time to start looking for these clouds.

Tornado near Edmond, Oklahoma

Since mid-May, the central and eastern U.S. have seen their biggest outbreak of tornadoes since 2011, with more than 366 twisters sighted.

Lightning, New York City, May 28, 2019

Alex Krivenyshev of the website WorldTimeZone.com caught these photos of the lightning show over New York City on May 28. "Watching from my window," he wrote. Thanks for sharing, Alex!

Giant planets and comets battle in planet-forming disk

A study of dust in the disk around the star HD 163296 suggests we're glimpsing a gravitational interaction between giant planets and much-smaller objects, the future asteroids and comets of this newly forming solar system.

Tiny dips in star brightnesses reveal 3 exocomets

It's amazing we can detect comets in distant solar systems at all! These are the first 3 exocomets found in data gathered by TESS, NASA's newest planet-hunter. The comets orbit the famous star Beta Pictoris.

Stolen comets and free-floating objects

What happens when young stars brush past each other? A lot, according to a new study suggesting our solar system contains comets stolen from another star 4.5 billion years ago.

Wow! The SpaceX Starlink satellite train

"Here is the video I shot, be prepared to be mind-blown!" Marco Langbroek wrote on his website SatTrackCam Leiden (b)log, where he shared an amazing capture of dozens of SpaceX Starlink internet satellites chugging along, in a straight line, across the heavens.

The Crow and the Southern Cross

The constellations Corvus the Crow and Crux the Southern Cross cross the sky together, and reach their highest point in the sky at about the same time. Here's a photo from Dr Ski in the Philippines, showing their relationship.