A constellation is a group of stars that forms a recognizable pattern in the night sky, one we've given a name, usually after a mythological figure, animal, or object. There are 88 of them officially recognized, and together they map out the entire sky....
From here on Earth, Venus is a thing of beauty. It's the dazzling "morning star" and "evening star," the brightest point of light in our sky after the Moon, glowing softly at dusk and dawn. For centuries people gazed at it and imagined a...
"Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still," once noted Carl Sagan. This spirit of discovery drives humanity toward the stars. Yet, the vacuum of the cosmos remains incredibly hostile to human life.
To survive, explorers rely on a...
Henrietta Leavitt spent her career at Harvard doing work considered too tedious for the men around her, poring over photographic plates by hand, cataloging faint points of light for 25 to 30 cents an hour. She wasn't allowed to operate the observatory's telescopes herself....