Arcturus is cutting perpendicularly through the galactic disk at a tremendous rate of speed – some 150 kilometers per second.
Thuban was the Pole Star some 5,000 years ago, when the Egyptians were building the pyramids.
Hadar, aka Beta Centauri, joins Alpha Centauri in pointing to the Southern Cross. It’s a triple system. Two of its stars will someday become nearby supernovae.
Spica is a binary star, with two stars larger and hotter than the sun, telescopically indistinguishable from a single point of light.
Mizar and its fainter companion star Alcor are located in the handle of the Big Dipper. They are one of the sky’s easiest-to-spot double stars.
The star Cor Caroli, or Alpha Canum Venaticorum, is a binary star and the brightest star in the northern constellation Canes Venatici.
You need to be at the latitude of New Orleans, Cairo or New Delhi to glimpse it. From the southern hemisphere, Mimosa is a prominent and beloved star.
You have to be in the Southern Hemisphere to see Crux – the Southern
Cross – in all its glory. Bluish Acrux, aka Alpha Crucis, is its brightest star.
Meet Regulus, brightest star in Leo the Lion.
You can see Alphard – the Heart of the constellation Hydra the Water Snake – in the evening in March, April, and May.
Earth’s shadow, sea and land