The flood of responses to the question of how many civilizations are out there in the cosmos continues, and I thank each and every one of you who took the time to assemble your thoughts and send them to me. Not all will appear in these blogs or in print...

Keck Week 2013 is coming. What the heck is that, you may ask? Twenty years ago, two enormous telescopes saw first light on the extinct volcano Mauna Kea in Hawaii, the Keck I and Keck II telescopes. Then the world’s largest at 10 meters in aperture...

For the past six years, astronomy outreach enthusiast Don Lubowich has put on a Super Bowl Star Party at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. If you’re in the area (and are not a Niners or Ravens fan), you might want to consider participating...

Thanks to Ryan Hannahoe and Rob Gendler for sending this fantastic image of the Cats Paw Nebula (NGC 6334) and the Lobster Nebula (NGC 6357) in Scorpius. These two huge emission nebulae are star forming regions, clouds of hydrogen gas in which gravity...

The virtuoso California imager Ken Crawford has done it again — this time creating a spectacular image of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (3C 461). Cas A is the relic of a stellar explosion that occurred some 300 years ago as seen on Earth, and...

As I’ve mentioned recently, Astronomy magazine has proudly entered into a partnership with the terrific planetarium software program Distant Suns , which is available for virtually every platform and device you can imagine. I’m pleased to...

Good friend John Schroer, planetarium committee chair of the Astronomy Foundation, informs me of a fun event coming up in the Detroit area March 16, 2013. Astronomy enthusiasts are invited to the 10th Annual Astronomy Show and Swap Meet hosted by the...

Yesterday’s close passage of the potentially hazardous asteroid (99942) Apophis, at a distance of 9 million miles (14 million kilometers), set off a wave of new social media discussions over doomsday scenarios. (After all, the asteroid was named...

By now, you’ve heard about the spectacular promise of Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON), which could outshine Venus by the time it graces our early morning sky in November 2013 (and yes, perhaps shine as bright as the Full Moon in a daytime sky, when it’s...

In the February Astronomy , I wrote a short piece on the Sun’s overall warming and why life on Earth may not exist within a billion years (“Snapshot,” p. 7). This has engendered a large volume of emails from readers on the subject, and...

Astronomy ’s 2011 Out-of-this-world Award went to The Albuquerque Astronomical Society (TAAS) in New Mexico. (The 2012 award will be announced soon.) I just received a wonderful update from Dee Friesen, President of TAAS, on how the group used the...

My short piece on the number of civilizations that may exist in the universe (January Astronomy , p. 9) continues to provoke a virtual flood of responses, mostly by email. I thank each and every one of you for sharing your thoughts with me, and I have...

On Saturday, February 16, 2013, staff members from Astronomy will join a group of many partners to put on a big star party in the United States’ “astronomy capitol,” Tucson, Arizona. If you’re in the area, we hope you’ll...