May Stargazing

Keep looking up!

Stargazing Summary

There's a planet pile-up in the east shortly before dawn this month. Venus — the brightest object in the night sky after the Moon — is the dominant player as the month begins, but Jupiter, which ranks right behind Venus, takes over by month's end. Mercury briefly joins them, but it's much fainter. Mars is also nearby, but it is closer to the Sun and almost impossible to find in the dawn glare.

More stargazing information: http://stardate.org/nightsky

Radio Program Highlights

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May 2-8: Taking steps. Astronaut Alan Shepard took America's first small step into space 50 years ago this week, and we'll have details. We'll also talk about a small step into the morning sky, and two steps into the asteroid belt.

May 9-15: Moon meanderings. The Moon passes by a bright planet and two bright stars this week. They'll all be on display for most of the night. And two other planets team up to put on their own display in the dawn sky. Join us for this and more.

May 16-22: Multitudes. The numbers really pile up this week. We have tales of a twin that's really a triplet of twins, a passel of planetoids, and several stars that help mark your position right here on Earth.

May 23-29: Planet hunt. While most astronomers look for planets around stars like our own, a few are looking for them around stars that are so feeble that you can't see a single one of them with the eye alone. Join us for the hunt for red-dwarf planets.

May 30-31: Solar eclipse. The Moon will partly cover up the Sun on Wednesday, slightly darkening skies from China to Norway. We'll have details. And we'll also talk about five decades of impressions of the space program.

May Program Schedule: http://stardate.org/radio/calendars

Find an Affiliate: http://stardate.org/radio/affiliates

Get StarDate's Special Summer Reading Issue!

The May/June issue of McDonald Observatory's StarDate magazine is our annual Summer Reading issue! We'll bring you excerpts from great new books in astronomy and space science to help you make your summer reading plans. And our Sky Calendar column and star charts are the perfect things to help you plan summer stargazing.


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News from the Observatory

Caught in the Act: Cascading Material Pours onto a Young Star


Astronomer Joel Green of The University of Texas at Austin has been following a rare massive flare from a nascent star similar to the early Sun using the European Space Agency's infrared Herschel Space Observatory and a cadre of other telescopes. Green has found that this protostar, called HBC 722, is situated in a tangled web of gas and protostars tightly packed into a small area. Green's research was published in the April 20 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Read more: http://mcdonaldobservatory.org/news/releases/2011/0420.html