I pick out North America’s celestial highlights for the week ahead (which also apply to mid-northern latitudes in the northern hemisphere).

Towards the end of the month, Mercury appears in the evening sky, and climbs up past Saturn. In the dusk glow, you may be ...

Mighty Jupiter stands high in the east at sunset, dominating the stars of Taurus the Bull as they begin to appear in the ...

With February’s winter nights regularly dropping below freezing, it’s tempting to take the easy way out and just stay inside.

You’ll find several bright planets, stars and obvious constellations in the February evening sky. The most obvious constellation this month is Orion. To find Orion, face south and look for Orion’s ...

Then look for ruddy Betelgeuse; it’s the upper left star in Orion, and bright Rigel is the lower right star of Orion. Going back to Orion’s Belt, look for three stars in a row below Orion’s ...

The concept is to use lasers to propel miniature space probes attached to "lightsails" to reach ultrafast speeds and eventually our nearest star system, Alpha Centauri. Caltech is leading the ...

Orion’s right foot star is Rigel, the seventh brightest star. Rigel is a blue-white supergiant and is by far the brightest of the 10 brightest stars in terms of actual magnitude. It ranks ...

Alpha Centauri is a triple star system located about 25 trillion miles away. Its brightest star, Alpha Centauri A, is similar to the Sun in both size and brightness. With a visual magnitude of 0.0 ...