Latest Radiant Stories

Blame it on the Moon: The 2006 Perseid meteor shower is going to be a dud. Oh, Earth will pass through the Perseid meteoroid stream, as usual. And meteors will flit across the sky. But when the shower peaks on Saturday morning, August 12th, the glare of the 87%-full Moon will overwhelm most Perseids, making them impossible to see.That sounds like the end of the story"”but don't stop reading. You might see some Perseids, after all. The trick is to look before the Moon rises. Plan your meteor...

ESA -- The annual Geminid meteor shower should reach its peak activity late on the night of 13-14 December 2005. Along with the better-known Perseids in August, the Geminids are the strongest of the reliable annual meteor showers. Late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, observers might see a "˜shooting star' every 5 to 10 minutes on average. However, this year the glare from the nearly full Moon will hide all but the brightest meteors. The Geminid shower is active for several...

SpaceWeather.com -- The eta Aquarid meteor shower peaks on May 5th and 6th. The best time to look, no matter where you live, is during the hours before local sunrise on both days.This is mainly a southern hemisphere shower, but northern observers can see it, too. In the United States, for example, observers far from city lights might see 5 to 10 meteors per hour. In Australia or South America, rates are better, between 15 and 60 meteors per hour.This year (2005) the eta Aquarid meteors will...

Viewing both the inner and outer planets with a telescope may promise some of the best views during January, particularly as the Saturn-Earth distance closes near the scheduled January 14th descent of the Huygens probe towards the surface of Titan.Astrobiology Magazine -- The highlight of January will be the planet Saturn, which will be opposite the sun as seen from Earth on Jan. 13. On that night Saturn will therefore be closest to us in its orbit, rising in the east at dusk and shining all...

The best meteor shower of 2004 peaks on Dec. 13th.Science@NASA -- Make hot cocoa. Bundle up. Tell your friends: the best meteor shower of 2004 is about to peak on a long cold December night. It's the Geminids. The best time to look is Monday night, Dec. 13th. Sky watchers who stay outside for a few hours around midnight can expect to see dozens to hundreds of "shooting stars." The source of the shower is asteroid 3200 Phaethon. There's a cloud of dust trailing the asteroid and Earth...