SkyCaramba

Mercury's at greatest elongation this week. Saturn's still up in the evening. Jupiter's about to turn around. Venus and the moon pair with a dragon star. Mars is still missing.

English speakers say the moon is at first quarter or last quarter. People who come from non-English speaking cultures have another view.

It's not often that an asteroid passes in front of one bright star. But it will happen twice next week!

It's been a half-century since Pioneer 10 went by Jupiter. And it's been 20 years since anyone last heard from the probe. Whatever's next for it will probably be in almost 40,000 years.

Mars just went through solar conjunction. Not only can ordinary observers not see the red planet, scientists can't stay in touch with the space probes there either. That's not a small concern. Missions to Mars have been hard. Here's the story of the first successful Mars probe to report back and what finally did shut it down.

Mercury's slowly making it into the evening sky. Saturn rules the evening. Jupiter's still up all night. So is Uranus as it's at opposition this week. Venus dominates the morning. Mars is hidden in the sun's glare.

A listener wants to know why the moon always seems to pass or over certain stars but not others. The answer goes back billions of years.

The first known crowdsourced scientific study began one morning 190 years ago when it looked like the stars were falling from the sky. Nobody knew yet just what meteors are. A professor's letter asking people to tell him what they saw set scientists on the path to figuring it out.

Jupiter will be up all night this week. This opposition isn't as close as last year's, but it'll be the closest for about a dozen years.

Stars zoom by the spacecraft in sci-fi movies and TV shows. Just how fast would you have to go for that to happen? Even light doesn't go anywhere near fast enough for it to look like the stars are barely moving.

For about two centuries, astronomers made mistakes and missed the chance to be credited for discovering Neptune. Finally, some mistakes led to someone discovering it.

This is the week of the annular solar eclipse that crosses the Americas. You don't have much time to get ready to see it. Find the times for your location with the eclipse visibility map.

The celestial dragon may deliver some fireballs courtesy of Comet Halley next week.

If you're in the Americas, you want to prepare for the solar eclipse on the 14th.