Inhaltsverzeichnis für April 2026 in Astronomy

In early 2013, when I left graduate school and went into journalism, I felt sure that we were on the brink of finding life beyond the solar system. In particular, red dwarf stars were a clear opportunity: They are small and intrinsically dim, which makes it easier to study the planets they host. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was several years away from launching, but there was hope that it could detect biosignatures — gases caused by life. It hasn’t panned out that way. Red dwarfs’ high levels of magnetic activity produce monstrous flares and star spots that make it challenging to analyze data and hard for small planets to retain atmospheres. A 2025 review in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences led by MIT’s Sara Seager concluded…

SCIENTISTS USING the James Webb Space Telecope (JWST) uncovered a strange exoplanet orbiting a pulsar — a rapidly rotating neutron star left after a massive star’s death. Called PSR J2322–2650 b, the world orbits every 7.8 hours at a distance of 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers). It has a mass similar to Jupiter, but an exotic helium- and carbon-dominated atmosphere never before seen. The find was published Dec. 16 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. “This system is unique because we are able to view the planet illuminated by its host star, but not see the host star at all,” said study co-author Maya Beleznay, a graduate student at Stanford University, in a press release. The pulsar emits mostly high-energy particles, which JWST’s infrared sensors cannot see. “So … we…

THE EXOLIFE FINDER (ELF) looks like no telescope ever built. A spectacular crown of 15 five-meter mirrors perches atop a sprawling metal lattice, resembling petals on a 10-story-tall mechanical flower — more sculpture than observatory. It is a fundamentally new type of telescope, one that its designers say could discover life on Earth-like planets beyond our solar system. The radical design is the brainchild of astrophysicist Jeff Kuhn of the University of Hawai‘i. For now, it exists only in renderings. To build it, Kuhn and the team he’s assembled must first develop and perfect techniques and technologies never before used in astronomy. That ring of mirrors, working in sync, would use a cutting-edge technique — the equivalent of stellar noise canceling — to block out the glare of a host…

To locate the Moon in the sky, draw a line from the phase shown for the day straight up to the curved blue line. THE PLANETS IN THEIR ORBITS Arrows show the inner planets’ monthly motions and dots depict the outer planets’ positions at midmonth from high above their orbits. THE PLANETS IN THE SKY These illustrations show the size, phase, and orientation of each planet and the two brightest dwarf planets at 0h UT for the dates in the data table at bottom. South is at the top to match the view through a telescope. JUPITER’S MOONS Dots display positions of Galilean satellites at 11 P.M. EDT on the date shown. South is at the top to match the view through a telescope.…

EARLY IN 1986, a visitor from deep space graced Earth’s skies, and for a few breathless weeks human eyes were snatched from their daily labors and fixated on the heavens. The object of this transitory public veneration was Halley’s Comet — the most famous, easily recognizable, and beloved of celestial wanderers. This icy interloper, officially known as 1P/Halley, revisits the inner solar system every 72 to 80 years. Aggregated lumps of frozen water and gases mixed with smaller amounts of rock and dust, comets originated in the solar nebula, from which the Sun and its planetary retinue formed, some 4.5 billion years ago. Their highly eccentric orbits periodically carry them to the outer solar system and back toward the Sun. There they undergo drastic heating and outgas chemical volatiles, which…

A TWISTED CLOSE RELATIONSHIP As odd couples go, it’s tough to beat the stellar pair at the heart of R Aquarii. This symbiotic binary system comprises a cool red giant and a sizzling white dwarf locked in a 44-year elliptical orbit. The enormous star pulsates in a roughly 390-day period, driving changes in temperature and brightness. It has only a tenuous grasp on its bloated outer layers, which allows the white dwarf to siphon some of this material when the two come closest. The liberated hydrogen forms an accretion disk around the white dwarf. When enough gas accumulates, it triggers an outburst that creates the surrounding nebula. At a distance of some 700 light-years, R Aqr ranks as the closest symbiotic binary to Earth. This image combines X-ray data (purple)…

A pic beyond description There are no words in the English language to describe the distance of Abell 3667 from Earth: 700 million light-years is a number so large as to be beyond our ability to comprehend it. Words like unimaginable, gigantic, unbelievable do not do justice to the fact of its distance from our planet. The ability to photograph it — as seen on page 7 of the December 2025 issue — boggles the mind! —Bob McRann Selfie secrets In the January 2026 issue, page 8, you show a selfie of the Mars rover. The rover appears to be completely separated from the camera, so how did it take the photo? —Robert Bobo Senior Editor Alison Klesman responds: There are two reasons why the arm holding the camera is never…

Astronomers have just spotted one of the biggest spinning structures ever seen. Some 424 million light-years away, a string of 14 galaxies spanning 5.5 million light-years is rotating together, embedded within a gyrating chunk of the cosmic web — the large-scale network of gas strung throughout the universe. The find was published Dec. 4 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Such synchronized alignments are unexpected and could complicate analysis of major upcoming surveys. ROUND AND ROUND Scientists found the structure in data from South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope. Observations by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument and Sloan Digital Sky Survey revealed more details. They saw that members on one end of the galaxy string were moving toward us, while those on the other end were moving away. Using…

IN AUGUST, astronomers saw both light and gravitational waves from an event they are calling a possible superkilonova, where a supernova and kilonova occur almost simultaneously. A supernova is the explosion of a massive star at the end of its life. A kilonova is a rarer event where two neutron stars, or a neutron star and a black hole, collide. These mergers send gravitational waves rippling through space-time and produce a characteristic fading red glow as they forge heavy elements like gold and platinum. In a superkilonova, when a rapidly spinning massive star goes supernova (at left in this artist’s rendering), it creates not one but two neutron stars (center). These objects spiral together and merge almost instantly in a kilonova (right). Visible is both the red glow from the…

IN A STUDY PUBLISHED NOV. 26 in Nature, researchers reported what they think is the first evidence of electrical activity in the martian atmosphere. Unlike Earth’s cloud-spanning lightning bolts, lightning on Mars is smaller in scale and caused by friction between dry dust particles. This is akin to the small static charges that build up when you drag your socks across carpet, called triboelectric charging. Since Perseverance landed in February 2021, its SuperCam instrument has been recording the sounds of the martian atmosphere with its onboard microphone. Across nearly 29 hours of data, researchers found 55 bursts of sound that they suspect are the snaps and crackles of static electricity. All but one occurred during high winds, and 16 were captured during direct encounters with dust devils as they passed…

THE LUNAR ECLIPSE of Sept. 7/8, 2025, was not favorable to observers in the Americas or Europe, but was well-placed for viewers in Asia. Tianyao Yang took the opportunity to capture the silhouette of the Chinese space station Tiangong (or “heavenly palace”) as it crossed the Moon during the eclipse. The International Space Station has previously been captured in transit across a Moon in Earth’s shadow, notably by astrophotographer Thierry Legault during the Sept. 28, 2015 eclipse. Yang decided to do the same for Tiangong — and to distinguish his image by blending the transit sequence with a high dynamic range (HDR) capture of the Moon, retaining detail in the umbra, the deepest part of Earth’s shadow. To plan the shot, Yang started with the orbital parameters of Tiangong, published…

On Oct. 7, the powerful High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) captured its 100,000th image of the Red Planet. The stunning shot shows a portion of Syrtis Major, a famous dark surface feature just north of the equator. The plains and dunes visible here were imaged in two different filters, providing color information. Regions with more sand and rock (and less dust) appear bluer. Long known to vary in appearance, Syrtis Major’s everchanging landscape is sculpted by blowing winds, which sweep the sand up into dunes. MRO has been circling Mars since 2006. Its data helps us better understand the dynamics of the Red Planet, including the challenges future astronauts may face there. HiRISE’s targets — including this one — are largely chosen…

ON NOV. 25, engineers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center successfully joined the two main segments of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, officially completing construction of the observatory ahead of schedule. In this photo, technicians watch as the two halves of the telescope are joined; the large, dark solar panels are visible above the silver back end of the telescope assembly and spacecraft bus. Although Roman has a primary mirror the same size as Hubble (2.4 meters), its 288-megapixel Wide Field Instrument boasts a field of view 100 times larger. This capability will power surveys that study dark matter, transient astronomical events, and the universe’s expansion. While the mission is formally scheduled to launch by May 2027, a Dec. 4 NASA press release cited a potential liftoff in fall…

Grand design galaxies are similar to the Milky Way, displaying well-formed spiral arms. Astronomers have long thought it takes billions of years to organize such structure. Apparently not: At right in this James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) image is a galaxy remarkably similar to our Milky Way, but seen at a time just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang. Co-discoverers Rashi Jain and Yogesh Wadadekar, of the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics in Pune, India, named it Alaknanda after the Himalayan river. (The Alaknanda is one of two head-streams of the Ganges River, alongside the Mandakini, which is also the Hindi name for the Milky Way.) Alaknanda lies behind the massive galaxy cluster Abell 2744, whose gravity bends and magnifies Alaknanda’s light, allowing JWST to capture the spiral structure…

FOR TWO DECADES, images from two European spacecraft have contained seemingly mundane digital glitches as they photographed Mars — smears of color from fast-moving dust devils too quick for the camera. Now, scientists have turned those artifacts into a surprising insight. By analyzing 1,039 of these glitches, they have revealed that the winds kicking up dust in Mars’s lower atmosphere are far more powerful and common than previously believed. The study, published Oct. 8 in Science Advances, reports that these whirlwinds race across the martian landscape at speeds far greater than previously known. The findings not only advance our understanding of Mars’ climate but could also prove critical for planning future robotic and human missions by improving forecasts of potentially deadly wind and dust storms at landing sites. “Dust affects…

APRIL 2026 Venus shines at dusk Exciting planetary action takes place this month. Venus and Uranus vie for attention and lie close to each other in late April. Jupiter offers a lot to observe through a telescope, particularly events involving its Galilean moons. The rest of the action takes place just before dawn, with Mars, Mercury, and Saturn making an appearance in late April. And remember to take time out to watch the Lyrid meteor shower, with no Moon to interfere. Venus is brilliant in the western sky soon after sunset. On April 1 it stands 13° high 30 minutes after sunset and shines at magnitude–3.9. Twenty minutes later, as twilight darkens, the stars of Taurus the Bull and the Pleiades star cluster (M45) pop into view above it. During the…

HOW TO USE THIS MAP This map portrays the sky as seen near 35° north latitude. Located inside the border are the cardinal directions and their intermediate points. To find stars, hold the map overhead and orient it so one of the labels matches the direction you’re facing. The stars above the map’s horizon now match what’s in the sky. The all-sky map shows how the sky looks at: midnight April 1 11 P.M. April 15 10 P.M. April 30 Planets are shown at midmonth STAR COLORS A star’s color depends on its surface temperature. The hottest stars shine blue Slightly cooler stars appear white Intermediate stars (like the Sun) glow yellow Lower-temperature stars appear orange The coolest stars glow red Fainter stars can’t excite our eyes’ color receptors, so…

Some people may think that the words astronomer and party-animal don’t go together. Nonetheless, for many astronomy enthusiasts, star parties are the social highlight of the observing season. Star parties are informal gatherings of amateur astronomers that let them share the night sky and their telescopes with the public and other observers. They can range from a few hours at a local park to week-long events held at distant dark-sky sites. They are usually sponsored by a local astronomy club, museum, or park. You can bring your own telescope or look through those of others. There are a few things you need to decide and prepare for before you head out for the starry skies and join the fun, so if star parties are new to you, read on for…

Spring is here and with the evening air growing warmer, it’s finally time to get back outside and enjoy the stars. It’s also a good time to team up with your local astronomy club or other interested observers and host some public outreach nights. As much joy as we get from looking through telescopes, that joy is multiplied when shared with others — particularly people who have never looked through an eyepiece before. Guidelines First, you must find a good place to host the event. A state or county park a little outside of town is ideal for darker skies, but sometimes you need to go to the people. My former astronomy club in Dayton, Ohio, frequently held events at local breweries, school parking lots, city parks, and sports fields.…

HOW TO USE THIS MAP This map portrays the sky as seen near 30° south latitude. Located inside the border are the cardinal directions and their intermediate points. To find stars, hold the map overhead and orient it so one of the labels matches the direction you’re facing. The stars above the map’s horizon now match what’s in the sky. The all-sky map shows how the sky looks at: 9 P.M. June 1 8 P.M. June 15 7 P.M. June 30 Planets are shown at midmonth MAP SYMBOLS Open cluster Globular cluster Diffuse nebula Planetary nebula Galaxy STAR MAGNITUDES Sirius 0.0 3.0 1.0 4.0 2.0 5.0 STAR COLORS A star’s color depends on its surface temperature. The hottest stars shine blue  Slightly cooler stars appear white  Intermediate stars (like the Sun) glow…