This is my favorite photo I captured during the August 21 solar eclipse from Charleston, SC. It shows a phenomenon called Baily’s Beads, which is caused by the last bits of Sun peeking through low points and between mountains along the limb of the Moon in the final moments before 100% totality. They’re only visible…
Author: Jason Major
Jason is a Rhode Island-based graphic designer, photographer, nature lover, and space exploration fanatic.
Antares is a Bug-Eyed Monster 700 Times Bigger Than Our Sun
From a “mere” 93 million miles away we’re able to view the surface of our home star the Sun very well with telescopes on Earth and in space…you can even observe large sunspots with your unaided eye (with proper protection, of course.) But the surface details of other stars tens, hundreds, or thousands of light-years…
Black Hole Sun: Photos of a Total Solar Eclipse
Today, August 21, 2017, the Moon briefly slid in front of the Sun, casting its shadow onto the Earth–the deepest part of which (called the umbra) passing across the United States from Salem, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina. I arranged to be positioned at the latter location, and thus experienced for the first time solar…
It’s Cassini’s Final Month.
Yes, it’s true. As of today, August 15, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has less than 31 days—one full month—left in operation and, sadly, its existence. On September 15, 2017, Cassini will end its mission with a controlled dive into Saturn’s atmosphere…a journey that it will not long survive. But up until the very end Cassini, which…
How To Make A Moon: New Research Is Raising Questions On Our Moon’s Birth
There are a lot of moons in our solar system—175 major planet satellites, and three times that if you count every natural satellite of every known object (like asteroids)—but among them our own capital-M Moon is in many ways unique. At a full quarter the size of Earth, only Pluto has a moon so near…
Answers to 8 Questions About the August 2017 Solar Eclipse
It’s August and one of the most highly-anticipated astronomical events of the 21st century is nearly upon us: the August 21 solar eclipse, which will be visible as a total eclipse literally across the entire United States…but that doesn’t mean everywhere in the United States. Totality will pass across the U.S. in a narrow band about…
This Toxic Compound on Titan Could Support Life “Not as We Know It”
Saturn’s largest moon Titan is often called an analogy to early Earth, with its thick, chemical-rich atmosphere and widespread system of flowing rivers and north polar lakes. But located almost a billion miles away from the Sun, everything on Titan is shifted into a completely different—and frigid—level of existence from that found on Earth. With…
NASA Gets WISE to Long-Period Comets
Comets are the icy remnants left over from the formation of the Solar System. They circle the Sun in highly elliptical orbits that can range in length from several years to several million years, depending on their origin, and while they are usually quiet and dark when they get close enough to the Sun they…
Our Moon Could Be Conveniently Full of Water
It’s been known for a while (especially since the 2009 LCROSS impact experiment) that there is water on the Moon. But so far the largest volume has been found as ice inside the shadowed walls of craters on the Moon’s south pole, likely originating from ancient comet impacts. Now, using data collected by India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar…
Have No Fear, Phobos is Here!
On May 12, 2016, the Hubble Space Telescope captured a series of images of Mars and in them the planet’s moon Phobos can be seen appearing from behind the western limb. This was just 10 days before opposition which, in 2016, was the closest Mars had been to Earth since 2005, lending particularly good opportunity…
This Day in Space History: One Small Step
Note: This is an updated article from 2012. “That’s one small step for a man… one giant leap for mankind.” I’m not sure what else need be said about the significance of what happened on this day in 1969 other than it was a shining moment in human history, and will be — should be…
Jupiter’s Red Spot Dominates New Juno P7 Pics
They’ve arrived! Images from NASA’s Juno spacecraft P7 pass have landed on Earth (a few days early no less) showing Jupiter’s Great Red Spot from the closest distance that it’s ever been imaged before. Captured on the night of July 10 (early July 11 morning UTC) the closest Junocam images were taken from a distance…
Lights in the Dark 