The science of eclipses

The worst time to look at the Moon is when it’s full, right? Not necessarily. It’s true that at full Moon, sunlight hits the surface head-on, flattening the appearance of its rugged landscape of deep

Planetary physicist Dr Sheila Kanani on why now is the time to spot shooting stars and a sunlit Saturn

As described on page 46, there will be a total lunar eclipse on 7 September that somewhat mirrors the one that occurred last March. Whereas March’s eclipse took place as the Moon was setting, with tot

Yes. On cosmic timescales, comets hit Earth frequently, but because they’re largely made of ice rather than solid rock, they tend not to leave obvious craters. A small comet is more likely than an asteroid to break up as it plunges into Earth’s atmosphere and heats up, often resulting in an explosion called an airburst that can devastate large areas of the landscape but doesn’t leave a crater. Perhaps the most famous such event happened over the Russian region of Tunguska in 1908, when an exploding comet flattened some 770 square miles of Siberian forest. A comet would have to be pretty big in order to hit the ground intact.

Sun, sangria and… solar eclipses? Over the next few years, Spain will offer front-row seats to some of the most spectacular celestial shows on Earth, with three ‘central’ – that is, total or annular –

Supermoons, micromoons and all the in-between Moons occur because the Moon’s orbit around Earth (or, more accurately, around the Earth–Moon barycentre) isn’t circular but elliptical. This means the Mo