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StarDate

Billy Henry

StarDate, the longest-running national radio science feature in the U.S., tells listeners what to look for in the night sky.

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23 episodes
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English

Episodes 23

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Yesterday · 2 min
Vesta
The second-largest asteroid in the solar system is a puzzler. Most studies say it has the same layers as a planet, but that it’s not massive enough to pull itself into a fully rounded shape like a planet. But one study found that it’s not lay
Sunday · 2 min
Messier 10
The stars in a binary system can be quite intimate. One star can pull gas off the surface of its companion, for example. And in extreme cases, the stars can merge to form a single star. Both types of interactions can make the stars look a lot younger tha
Saturday · 2 min
Double Cluster
A pair of big, young star clusters is one of the skywatching highlights of autumn evenings. Each cluster contains thousands of stars. And hundreds of those stars are especially impressive – supergiants that are many times the size and mass of the S
Friday · 2 min
Caroline’s Rose
Cassiopeia is an easy constellation to pick out. The stars of the queen form a prominent letter M or W, which is visible even through moderate light pollution. And under dark skies, binoculars reveal several star clusters around that pattern, all immerse
Thursday · 2 min
Quiet Monster
A quiet monster lurks in the heart of M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. Known as M31-star, it’s a black hole a hundred million times the mass of the Sun, and 25 times heavier than the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. Every large galaxy probably h
Wednesday · 2 min
Andromeda Galaxy
Two-and-a-half million years ago, Earth was going through some big changes. It was the start of the Pleistocene epoch – a period of major ice ages. And the ancestors of modern humans were just appearing. That timescale puts a little perspective on
October 6 · 2 min
Moon and Regulus
The Moon has had a busy social calendar this week. It’s had meet-and-greets with the twins of Gemini and the planets Mars and Jupiter. And it has one more engagement tomorrow. Regulus, the heart of the lion, will stand above the Moon at dawn. In ce
October 5 · 2 min
Moon and Jupiter
For skywatchers across the eastern United States, the planet Jupiter will vanish early tomorrow – hidden behind the crescent Moon. The rest of the country will see an impressively close encounter between the two bodies. The vanishing act is an occu
October 4 · 2 min
Moon and Mars
To borrow from “Alice in Wonderland,” the case for life on Mars keeps getting curiouser and curiouser. Two rovers have discovered organic compounds there – the chemical building blocks of life – in locations that are thousands of
October 3 · 2 min
Moon and Companions
The Moon will run a gauntlet of bright stars and planets the next few mornings, from the twins of Gemini to the heart of the lion. The twins are up first. Pollux and Castor will perch to the upper left of the Moon at dawn tomorrow. Pollux is the brighter
October 2 · 2 min
Saturn Opposition III
Saturn is a “superior” planet. Among other things, it’s the second-largest and second-heaviest planet in the solar system. Technically, though, what makes it “superior” is its location. It’s the sixth planet from the S
October 1 · 2 min
Saturn Opposition II
This isn’t a sound effect from a sci-fi movie. Instead, it’s the “voice” of the auroras on the planet Saturn – radio waves that have been shifted to wavelengths we can hear. They were recorded by the Cassini spacecraft as it
September 30 · 2 min
Saturn at Opposition
Saturn puts in its best appearance of the year over the next few nights. On Sunday, it’ll reach opposition – it will line up opposite the Sun. It’s closest to Earth at opposition, so it shines brightest. And it’s in view all night
September 29 · 2 min
Kaus Australis
To modern eyes, the stars of Sagittarius form the outline of a teapot. But in Greek mythology, the constellation was far more extensive. It represented a centaur – half-man, half-horse – holding a bow and arrow. And the brightest star in the
September 28 · 2 min
Galactic Disruption
Galaxies aren’t good neighbors. They can stretch and pull the galaxies around them, rip them apart, and even gobble them up. A case in point is the Magellanic Clouds – the largest satellite galaxies of the Milky Way. The Large Magellanic Clou
September 27 · 2 min
Moon and Saturn
If you’re searching for life on another world, you don’t want to find life that’s hitchhiked from Earth. But preventing contamination isn’t easy. Over the past few decades, we’ve identified quite a few worlds in the outer so
September 26 · 2 min
Harvest Moon
The Moon is full today. But it’s not just any old full Moon. It’s the best-known of them all: the Harvest Moon – the subject of books, music, and lots of fall festivals. In centuries past, the Harvest Moon was much more than a pop-cultu
September 25 · 2 min
Neptune Opposition III
Neptune has lost its vibrancy. The planet itself hasn’t changed – only our perception of it – the result of a bit of creative license exercised 37 years ago. Neptune is the Sun’s fourth-largest planet – four times the diamet
September 24 · 2 min
Neptune Opposition II
The largest moon of Neptune was an agent of chaos. It wasn’t born with Neptune itself. Instead, it was captured by the giant planet. As it spiraled in, it might have hit one of Neptune’s existing moons. And it scattered the others – kno
September 23 · 2 min
Neptune at Opposition
It’s not often that someone hands an astronomer a major discovery. But that’s what happened 180 years ago today. German astronomer Johann Galle, the director of Berlin Observatory, received a letter from Urbain Le Verrier. The French astronom

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