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An artist's illustration of two astronauts in white spacesuits working on the gray lunar surface beside a large cylindrical mobile habitat on wheels, with a smaller open surface vehicle to the right and equipment cases scattered between them, set against a black sky.

Human Spaceflight

How NASA plans to build a Moon Base

Astrophotography

Astronomy magazine launches 2026 astrophotography contest presented by Celestron

My first image of the Lagoon Nebula (M8) was effectively zoomed in so far that the object looked nothing like a lagoon. It was taken with a Nikon D3100 on my Celestron 8-inch SCT, with an exposure time of 30 seconds at ISO 3200.

Astrophotography, Observing Basics

How to choose the right focal length for your astrophotos

A screenshot of the July 2026 issue landing page. The hero image features a bright deep-space scene with a glowing blue core of a nebula, wrapped in thick, textured clouds of amber and brown gas and dust. Sharp white stars fill the outer regions of the frame, with a few brighter stars showing cross-shaped spikes.

How to read the July digital issue of Astronomy magazine

Picture of the Day

A wide starfield fills the frame, with a bright, textured orange cloud of glowing gas in the lower right that resembles a jellyfish. Its center is dense and fibrous and its lower edge frayed into wisps. Fainter strands of orange gas arc upward from it into a larger, hazy cloud that stretches across the top half of the image, fading from murky yellow-green on the upper left into soft blue on the upper right and cut through by dark, jagged dust lanes. Small white stars are scattered over the black background, with a couple of brighter yellow-white stars standing out near the left edge and below the main jellyfish-shaped cloud.

Sky nettle

Carl Parnell, taken from Dawlish, Devon, UK

The Jellyfish Nebula (IC 443 or Sharpless 2–248) is the remnant of a supernova that went off some 30,000 years ago in Gemini. Filling the top half of the image is a glowing molecular complex threaded by multiple dark nebula (LDN 1565–8). The supernova debris plowing into this cloud is what generates the glowing shock wave that forms the top of the “head” of the jellyfish. The bright star just to the right of the jellyfish’s tentacles is Propus; the bright star in the upper left is Tejat. The imager took 7 hours of exposure with a 2-inch scope in the Hubble palette.

In the Sky

A simulated night sky looking east on June 6, 2026, at 11 P.M. The Summer Triangle stars Vega, Deneb, and Altair are visible, along with the double star Albireo at the head of Cygnus. The faint band of the Milky Way stretches across the scene.

The Sky Today on Saturday, June 6: Albireo returns

What’s Launching This Week

What’s Launching This Week

SpaceX, China set for busy launch week

Today in the History of Astronomy

A color photograph shows two men wearing glasses standing outdoors in front of a steeply tilted, layered rock formation. The older man on the left wears a white, short-sleeved button-down shirt and dark pants, while the younger man on the right wears a blue short-sleeved shirt, dark pants, and holds a small hammer. Both men are smiling at the camera and touching the rocky, tan and grayish-brown cliff face behind them under bright daylight.

Today in the History of Astronomy

June 6, 1980: The asteroid impact theory

More News

A 360-degree panoramic view of the Milky Way galaxy stretching horizontally across the frame as a bright, glowing band of stars and dust. The galactic center is visible near the middle, dense with warm orange and brown dust lanes and bright star clusters. The surrounding sky is deep black, dotted with individual stars and a few faint nebulae and satellite galaxies visible in the lower portion of the image.

Cosmology, Galaxies

Giant supercluster discovered hiding behind the Milky Way

A twilight photograph taken over a calm body of water, with a vivid orange and red sunset glow along the horizon. The silhouettes of hills and a prominent volcanic peak stretch across the skyline. Jupiter and Venus appear as two bright points of light close together in the deep blue upper sky above the scene.

Sky This Week, The Sky This Week

The Sky This Week from June 5 to 12: Jupiter and Venus meet

$A curved, icy surface stretches across the lower portion of the frame, with multiple bright jets of vapor and particles erupting upward into a black sky from the moon's fractured southern terrain.$

Scientists used a method from ecology to identify whether icy moons could hold conditions for life

No matter how many Full Moons appear in any given timespan, its color will not actually change to blue. Credit: John Chumack.

Observing, The Moon

What is a Blue Moon? When’s the next one?

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