Astronomy News 20 September 2025

Cosmic Sky Show: Northern Lights, Shooting Stars & Space Spectacles Dazzle Sept. 26–27, 2025

Key Facts Space Weather Outlook: Auroras & Solar Storms After a geomagnetically active equinox week, Earth’s magnetosphere is settling down for now. A few days ago, skywatchers as far south as Alberta were treated to vibrant auroral shapes (one even looked like a green “shark’s fin” cutting through the stars) thanks to a high-speed solar wind stream spaceweather.com. As of Friday, Sept. 26, that solar wind has slackened, and NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center forecasts quiet geomagnetic conditions in the near term earthsky.org. Any auroras tonight will likely be confined to the high Arctic latitudes – think northern Canada, Alaska, Greenland,

26 September 2025

Launch Doubleheader and Lunar Revelations – Space News Roundup (Sept 25-26, 2025)

Marathon Launch Day: Starlink & Kuiper Soar September 25, 2025 saw an extraordinary launch doubleheader. In the pre-dawn hours, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 4:39 a.m. EDT carrying 28 Starlink internet satellites into low Earth orbit spaceflightnow.com. Just a few hours later at 8:09 a.m. EDT, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V roared skyward from a neighboring pad with 27 of Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband satellites onboard spaceflightnow.com. The rare one-two punch meant two orbital launches from one spaceport within 3.5 hours, treating spectators on Florida’s Space Coast to dual rocket trails in the sky. SpaceX’s early-morning Starlink

26 September 2025

Astronomy · Launches · Science News · Space · Space Exploration

Northern Lights, New Comet & Saturn Shine: Must-See Sky Events on Sept 25–26, 2025

Summary Auroras Dance Under Equinox Skies It’s aurora season! The autumnal equinox (September 22) is traditionally a prime time for auroras because of the way Earth’s magnetic field interacts with the solar wind this time of year. Researchers have observed that around the equinoxes, cracks tend to open in Earth’s magnetosphere, allowing even relatively minor solar activity to trigger auroral displays spaceweatherarchive.com spaceweatherarchive.com. This is known as the Russell–McPherron effect – essentially, “even a gentle gust of solar wind can breach our planet’s magnetic defenses” near the equinox spaceweatherarchive.com. Over the past week, the Sun has kept forecasters on their

25 September 2025

Astronomy · Northern Lights · Planetary Science · Space Events · Stargazing

Space Showdown: 48 Hours of Epic Launches, Cosmic Breakthroughs, and a New Moonship Name

Major Launches Light Up Late September Solar sentinel liftoff: The week’s biggest blast-off came early on Sept. 24, when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket roared off Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center carrying a trio of spacecraft devoted to space weather research nasa.gov. In a single launch at 7:30 a.m. EDT, NASA and NOAA deployed the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, and NOAA’s Space Weather Follow-On L1 (SWFO-L1) satellite toward the Sun-Earth Lagrange point nasa.gov nasaspaceflight.com. This “fleet” will probe how the Sun’s charged particles and solar wind affect Earth and the broader solar system. “This

25 September 2025

Astronomy · NASDAQ:AMZN · Rocket Launches · Space · Space Exploration · Spacecraft · Technology News

Saturn Dazzles, New Comet Rises, and Auroras Loom: Skywatch Alert for Sept 24–25, 2025

Saturn Steals the Show If you step outside on these late-September nights, Saturn immediately grabs your attention. The ringed planet reached opposition (when Earth passed directly between Saturn and the Sun) on September 21, and it remains exceptionally bright and gorgeous in the sky planetary.org. At opposition Saturn is closest to Earth for the year, so it shines at maximum brilliance and is visible all night, rising around sunset and setting near dawn. “Saturn will be at its closest and brightest all year!” as NASA explains science.nasa.gov – truly the best time to enjoy this gas giant. Look for Saturn

24 September 2025

Astronomy · Auroras · Comets · Planets · Skywatching

‘God of Chaos’ Asteroid Apophis to Skim Earth in 2029 – Inside the Historic Flyby and the 3 Probes Racing to Study It

Astronomers Propose Blowing Up a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid

Key Facts and Summary The Asteroid 2024 YR4: From Earth Hazard to Lunar Threat 2024 YR4 is a recently discovered asteroid that has drawn intense attention from astronomers and space agencies. Detected on 27 December 2024 by the ATLAS survey telescope in Chile, it initially appeared on a worrisome trajectory esa.int. In early 2025, automated orbit calculations raised the alarm that this ~60-meter “city-killer” asteroid had a roughly 3% chance of impacting Earth on December 22, 2032 esa.int universetoday.com. A few percent might sound small, but by asteroid risk standards it’s huge – for context, NASA’s risk list almost never

23 September 2025

Asteroids · Astronomy · Planetary Defense · Science News · Space

Equinox Auroras, Mystery Fireballs & Planetary Spectacles (Sept 23–24, 2025 Skywatch Alert)

Summary Night Sky Highlights (Sept 23–24, 2025) Auroras Dance (But Fading) The autumnal equinox on Sept 22 didn’t just mark the start of fall – it also enhanced Earth’s aurora activity. Around the equinox, Earth’s tilted magnetic field lets more solar particles in, an effect scientists call the “equinox effect” people.com. This year lived up to that reputation: NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center had forecast minor geomagnetic storms (G1) from Sept 21 through 23, meaning the northern lights could be seen much farther south than usual during that period people.com. Indeed, auroras “crashed the equinox party” this week, delighting skywatchers

23 September 2025

Astronomy · Aurora · Meteor Showers · Skywatching · Space Events

Fly Through the Milky Way: ESA’s Stunning New 3D Galaxy Map Lets You Tour Our Galaxy

Background: Mapping the Milky Way with Gaia Launching on 19 December 2013, the ESA’s Gaia spacecraft set out to chart our Milky Way in unprecedented detail ucl.ac.uk. Stationed at the stable L2 point about 1.5 million km from Earth – the same deep-space neighborhood as NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope – Gaia had a very different mission: to survey our own galaxy rather than peering at the distant universe earthsky.org. Over more than a decade, Gaia repeatedly scanned the sky with a billion-pixel camera, measuring the position, brightness, and motion of billions of stars multiple times earthsky.org earthsky.org. This technique

22 September 2025

Astronomy · Milky Way · Science News · Space · Technology

Rare ‘Equinox Eclipse’ on Sept. 21, 2025 – Partial Solar Eclipse Promises a Spectacular Sunrise Show

What is a Partial Solar Eclipse? A partial solar eclipse happens when the moon passes between Earth and the sun but doesn’t completely cover the sun, so only a portion of the sun’s disk is obscured space.com. To an observer, it appears as if the moon has taken a “bite” out of the sun – leaving the sun as a bright crescent shape in the sky. In a partial eclipse the alignment isn’t perfect; the moon’s central shadow (umbra) misses Earth, so we only experience the penumbra (partial shadow) en.wikipedia.org. Because part of the sun remains visible, a partial eclipse

21 September 2025

Astronomy · Celestial Phenomena · Solar Eclipses · Space Events · Stargazing

Skywatchers’ Delight: Solar Eclipse, Saturn’s Brightest Night & Equinox Auroras (Sept 21–22, 2025)

Key Facts: Partial Solar Eclipse at Dawn (Sept 21) An impressive partial solar eclipse will greet early-risers (and late-day viewers across the dateline) on Sunday, Sept 21, 2025. This eclipse is “deep” – at peak about 85% of the sun’s disk will be covered by the moon earthsky.org. The eclipse path spans the South Pacific, including much of New Zealand, a thin slice of eastern Australia’s coast, parts of Antarctica, and various Pacific islands space.com. In these regions the event happens around local sunrise on the 22nd (morning of Sept 22 in NZ/Aus, which corresponds to Sept 21 UTC) earthsky.org.

21 September 2025

Astronomy · Auroras · Saturn · Skywatching · Solar Eclipses

Skywatchers’ Weekend Spectacle: Eclipse, Auroras & Saturn Dazzle Sept 20–21, 2025

Key Facts Meteor Showers & Fireballs Even without a major meteor shower peak, the night sky is still offering shooting stars this weekend. Several minor meteor showers are active, and combined with random “sporadic” meteors they can produce up to 10 meteors per hour under dark skies imo.net imo.net. The Moon is new on Sept 21 (invisible at night) imo.net, which means moonless dark skies ideal for meteor spotting in the predawn hours. Active meteor showers right now include: Most of the meteors this weekend will be sporadics, the random bits of dust and rock that hit Earth’s atmosphere every

20 September 2025

Astronomy · Eclipses · Night Sky Events · Planetary Science · Stargazing

Space Race Heats Up: Major Launches, Moon Missions & Policy Showdowns (Sept. 19–20, 2025)

Key Facts Starlink Launch Extends SpaceX’s Record Year SpaceX continued its rapid launch cadence with yet another Starlink deployment on Sept. 19. After two days of bad weather delays, a Falcon 9 rocket roared off the pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base at 9:31 a.m. local time, carrying 24 Starlink V2 Mini satellites into polar orbit spaceflightnow.com. This mission – dubbed Starlink 17-12 – was SpaceX’s 84th Starlink launch of the year, underscoring the company’s breakneck pace in 2025 spaceflightnow.com. It also brings the total Starlink satellites launched in 2025 to over 2,000 as SpaceX builds out its massive internet constellation spaceflightnow.com. Notably, the

20 September 2025

Astronomy · Moon Missions · NASDAQ:SATS · NYSE:NOC · Science News · Space · Space Exploration · Space Policy

Astronomy News 20 September 2025 - 26 September 2025