Are elephant whiskers key to their sense of touch?

EarthSky’s Cristina Ortiz explains fascinating new research into elephant whiskers.

Elephant whiskers show nature’s design for touch

Scientists have made a discovery that might change how we understand animal touch. The research team, led by the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, said on February 12, 2026, that the secret behind the elephant’s extraordinary tactile abilities lies in the material structure of its trunk whiskers.

They found that these specialized hairs allow elephants to sense precise points of contact. This happens despite an elephant’s thick skin and relatively poor eyesight.

The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Science on February 12, 2026, shows that each whisker has a stiff base that gradually transitions into a soft, rubber-like tip. This change in stiffness along its length lets elephants feel precise contact with objects. As a result, elephants can manipulate delicate objects with astonishing precision. For example, they can grasp something as fragile as a tortilla chip without breaking it, or pick up a peanut with remarkable control.

How material intelligence enhances elephant whiskers

At first, the researchers expected elephant whiskers to resemble those of rodents, which stay uniformly stiff from base to tip. However, detailed imaging and mechanical testing revealed a different structure.

The team used advanced microscopy and nanoindentation (a test where a small probe presses on the whisker to measure stiffness). This allowed the team to examine the whiskers down to the nanometer scale (a billionth of a meter). They discovered the base behaves like rigid plastic, while the tip acts like resilient rubber that bends without breaking or losing its shape.

This gradual shift in stiffness creates what engineers call embodied intelligence. Instead of relying solely on brain signals, the whisker’s material properties themselves encode information about where contact occurs. In other words, the whisker’s structure helps the animal determine how close its trunk is to an object and how it should respond. Co-lead author Andrew K. Schulz expressed his excitement about the finding. He said:

It’s pretty amazing! The stiffness gradient provides a map to allow elephants to detect where contact occurs along each whisker.

Note the elephant whiskers on the top edge of the trunk. The whiskers are smart sensors that allow elephants to feel their surroundings and grab objects with precision. Image via MPI-IS / A. Posada and Heidelberg Zoo (used with permission).

The architecture of the whiskers

In addition, micro-CT scans (a type of 3D X-ray imaging) showed that elephant whiskers have a flattened, blade-like shape with a hollow base and internal channels. This porous architecture reduces weight and makes the whiskers more durable. Because these hairs never grow back and elephants eat large amounts of food every day, durability is essential. The structure prevents breakage while still allowing sensitive touch.

Microscopic view of an elephant whisker in cross-section. Image via MPI-IS/ D. Philip & H. David (used with permission).

A 3D-printed breakthrough moment

Although the team had discovered the stiffness gradient, they initially struggled to understand how it affected the sense of touch. To explore this in a tangible way, Schulz and his colleagues created a scaled-up 3D-printed whisker. The model had a dark, stiff base and a transparent, soft tip, mimicking the natural whisker.

The turning point came unexpectedly. Co-lead author Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, from the Haptic Intelligence Department at MPI-IS, carried the model through the institute’s hallways. She tapped it against railings and columns, immediately noticing that each section felt different. She explained:

I noticed that tapping the railing with different parts of the whisker wand felt distinct – soft and gentle at the tip, and sharp and strong at the base. I didn’t need to look to know where the contact was happening; I could just feel it.

This simple experiment clarified the concept. The stiffness gradient produces different signals depending on where contact occurs. Computational simulations confirmed this effect. They show the transition from stiff to soft helps elephants detect exactly where something touches the whisker, allowing careful and precise manipulation of objects.

Cats share the elephant whisker secret

Interestingly, elephants are not the only animals with this design. Cats also have whiskers with the same type of stiffness gradient. This similarity suggests that evolution favors this structure in animals that rely heavily on touch for exploring their environment.

Notably, not all elephant hairs follow this pattern. When the researchers compared the Asian elephant’s trunk whiskers to its body hair, they found that body hairs remain stiff from base to tip. This contrast highlights how specially adapted the trunk whiskers are for fine touch rather than general protection. Schulz reflected on the finding:

The hairs on the head, body and tail of Asian elephants are stiff from base to tip, which is what we were expecting when we found the surprising stiffness gradient of elephant trunk whiskers.

Elephants have stiff body hairs, but trunk whiskers bend and flex, turning touch into a finely tuned sense. Image via MPI-IS (used with permission).

From whiskers to robotics

This discovery could inspire a new generation of robots and sensors. By embedding “smart” features directly into materials, engineers could build devices that sense their environment more accurately, without needing complex computer systems. Schulz highlighted this potential:

Bio-inspired sensors that have an artificial elephant-like stiffness gradient could give precise information with little computational cost purely by intelligent material design.

Dr. Lena V. Kaufmann, a co-author of the study and a neuroscience expert at the Humboldt University of Berlin, explained the bigger picture:

Our findings contribute to our understanding of the tactile perception of these fascinating animals and open up exciting opportunities to further study the relation of whisker material properties and neuronal computation.

The collaboration also included materials scientists from the University of Stuttgart, showing how teamwork across disciplines drives innovation. Reflecting on the project, Kuchenbecker praised the collective effort:

Andrew pulled together an amazing team of engineers, materials scientists, and neuroscientists from five different research groups and led us on an exhilarating three-year-long journey to discover the secrets behind the powerful elephant’s gentle sense of touch.

This study was the collaboration of engineers, neuroscientists and materials scientists. They uncovered the sensing of elephant whisker, paving the way for a new generation of robots and materials that can sense and respond like living systems. Image via MPI-IS (used with permission).

Bottom line: Elephant whiskers reveal how giants with thick skin and poor eyesight can sense touch with astonishing delicacy, precision and subtle awareness.

Source: Functional gradients facilitate tactile sensing in elephant whiskers

Via Max Planck Society

Read more: The quiet tapir: Rainforest’s unsung hero

Read more: Anteaters are vacuum-like animals: Lifeform of the week

The post Are elephant whiskers key to their sense of touch? first appeared on EarthSky.

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/Mf8UVIw

EarthSky’s Cristina Ortiz explains fascinating new research into elephant whiskers.

Elephant whiskers show nature’s design for touch

Scientists have made a discovery that might change how we understand animal touch. The research team, led by the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, said on February 12, 2026, that the secret behind the elephant’s extraordinary tactile abilities lies in the material structure of its trunk whiskers.

They found that these specialized hairs allow elephants to sense precise points of contact. This happens despite an elephant’s thick skin and relatively poor eyesight.

The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Science on February 12, 2026, shows that each whisker has a stiff base that gradually transitions into a soft, rubber-like tip. This change in stiffness along its length lets elephants feel precise contact with objects. As a result, elephants can manipulate delicate objects with astonishing precision. For example, they can grasp something as fragile as a tortilla chip without breaking it, or pick up a peanut with remarkable control.

How material intelligence enhances elephant whiskers

At first, the researchers expected elephant whiskers to resemble those of rodents, which stay uniformly stiff from base to tip. However, detailed imaging and mechanical testing revealed a different structure.

The team used advanced microscopy and nanoindentation (a test where a small probe presses on the whisker to measure stiffness). This allowed the team to examine the whiskers down to the nanometer scale (a billionth of a meter). They discovered the base behaves like rigid plastic, while the tip acts like resilient rubber that bends without breaking or losing its shape.

This gradual shift in stiffness creates what engineers call embodied intelligence. Instead of relying solely on brain signals, the whisker’s material properties themselves encode information about where contact occurs. In other words, the whisker’s structure helps the animal determine how close its trunk is to an object and how it should respond. Co-lead author Andrew K. Schulz expressed his excitement about the finding. He said:

It’s pretty amazing! The stiffness gradient provides a map to allow elephants to detect where contact occurs along each whisker.

Note the elephant whiskers on the top edge of the trunk. The whiskers are smart sensors that allow elephants to feel their surroundings and grab objects with precision. Image via MPI-IS / A. Posada and Heidelberg Zoo (used with permission).

The architecture of the whiskers

In addition, micro-CT scans (a type of 3D X-ray imaging) showed that elephant whiskers have a flattened, blade-like shape with a hollow base and internal channels. This porous architecture reduces weight and makes the whiskers more durable. Because these hairs never grow back and elephants eat large amounts of food every day, durability is essential. The structure prevents breakage while still allowing sensitive touch.

Microscopic view of an elephant whisker in cross-section. Image via MPI-IS/ D. Philip & H. David (used with permission).

A 3D-printed breakthrough moment

Although the team had discovered the stiffness gradient, they initially struggled to understand how it affected the sense of touch. To explore this in a tangible way, Schulz and his colleagues created a scaled-up 3D-printed whisker. The model had a dark, stiff base and a transparent, soft tip, mimicking the natural whisker.

The turning point came unexpectedly. Co-lead author Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, from the Haptic Intelligence Department at MPI-IS, carried the model through the institute’s hallways. She tapped it against railings and columns, immediately noticing that each section felt different. She explained:

I noticed that tapping the railing with different parts of the whisker wand felt distinct – soft and gentle at the tip, and sharp and strong at the base. I didn’t need to look to know where the contact was happening; I could just feel it.

This simple experiment clarified the concept. The stiffness gradient produces different signals depending on where contact occurs. Computational simulations confirmed this effect. They show the transition from stiff to soft helps elephants detect exactly where something touches the whisker, allowing careful and precise manipulation of objects.

Cats share the elephant whisker secret

Interestingly, elephants are not the only animals with this design. Cats also have whiskers with the same type of stiffness gradient. This similarity suggests that evolution favors this structure in animals that rely heavily on touch for exploring their environment.

Notably, not all elephant hairs follow this pattern. When the researchers compared the Asian elephant’s trunk whiskers to its body hair, they found that body hairs remain stiff from base to tip. This contrast highlights how specially adapted the trunk whiskers are for fine touch rather than general protection. Schulz reflected on the finding:

The hairs on the head, body and tail of Asian elephants are stiff from base to tip, which is what we were expecting when we found the surprising stiffness gradient of elephant trunk whiskers.

Elephants have stiff body hairs, but trunk whiskers bend and flex, turning touch into a finely tuned sense. Image via MPI-IS (used with permission).

From whiskers to robotics

This discovery could inspire a new generation of robots and sensors. By embedding “smart” features directly into materials, engineers could build devices that sense their environment more accurately, without needing complex computer systems. Schulz highlighted this potential:

Bio-inspired sensors that have an artificial elephant-like stiffness gradient could give precise information with little computational cost purely by intelligent material design.

Dr. Lena V. Kaufmann, a co-author of the study and a neuroscience expert at the Humboldt University of Berlin, explained the bigger picture:

Our findings contribute to our understanding of the tactile perception of these fascinating animals and open up exciting opportunities to further study the relation of whisker material properties and neuronal computation.

The collaboration also included materials scientists from the University of Stuttgart, showing how teamwork across disciplines drives innovation. Reflecting on the project, Kuchenbecker praised the collective effort:

Andrew pulled together an amazing team of engineers, materials scientists, and neuroscientists from five different research groups and led us on an exhilarating three-year-long journey to discover the secrets behind the powerful elephant’s gentle sense of touch.

This study was the collaboration of engineers, neuroscientists and materials scientists. They uncovered the sensing of elephant whisker, paving the way for a new generation of robots and materials that can sense and respond like living systems. Image via MPI-IS (used with permission).

Bottom line: Elephant whiskers reveal how giants with thick skin and poor eyesight can sense touch with astonishing delicacy, precision and subtle awareness.

Source: Functional gradients facilitate tactile sensing in elephant whiskers

Via Max Planck Society

Read more: The quiet tapir: Rainforest’s unsung hero

Read more: Anteaters are vacuum-like animals: Lifeform of the week

The post Are elephant whiskers key to their sense of touch? first appeared on EarthSky.

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Circumpolar stars never rise or set and depend on latitude

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Rui Santos in Amor, Leiria, Portugal, shared this composite image of star trails on February 16, 2025, and wrote: “We can’t feel it, but everything is in motion. Everything moves, even when it seems still. And nature is never the same twice; it is constantly changing, in a vivid and silent way.” Thank you, Rui! Read more about circumpolar stars below.

EarthSky’s 2026 lunar calendar shows the moon phase for every day of the year. Get yours today!

Circumpolar stars circle the celestial pole

The closer you are to either of Earth’s poles, the more circumpolar stars you see. Circumpolar stars neither rise nor set but stay above the horizon at all hours of the day, every day of the year. Even when you can’t see them – when the sun is out and it’s daytime – these stars are up there. They are circling endlessly around the sky’s north or south celestial pole.

For instance, the stars of the famous Big Dipper asterism are circumpolar at all latitudes north of 41 degrees north latitude, which includes the northern half of the mainland United States and most of Europe.

The Big Dipper and the W-shaped constellation Cassiopeia circle around Polaris, the North Star, in a period of 23 hours and 56 minutes. The Dipper is circumpolar at 41 degrees north latitude, and all latitudes farther north. Image via Mjchael/ Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 2.5).

No circumpolar stars at Earth’s equator

How many circumpolar stars appear in your sky depends on where you are. For example, at Earth’s North and South Poles, every visible star is circumpolar. That is, at Earth’s North Pole, every star north of the celestial equator is circumpolar, while every star south of the celestial equator stays below the horizon. On the other hand, at the Earth’s South Pole, it’s the exact opposite. That’s where every star south of the celestial equator is circumpolar, whereas every star north of the celestial equator remains beneath the horizon.

Meanwhile at the Earth’s equator, no star is circumpolar because all the stars rise and set daily in that part of the world. You can (theoretically) see every star in the night sky over the course of one year. Of course, things like clouds and horizon haze get in the way.

Circumpolar stars and where you live

Places between the equator and poles have some stars that are circumpolar, some stars that rise and set daily (like the sun), and some stars that remain below the horizon all year round. In short, the closer you are to the North or South Pole, the greater the circle of circumpolar stars; the closer you are to the Earth’s equator, the smaller the circle of circumpolar stars.

Here is how to determine what is circumpolar from your location. Subtract your latitude from 90 and you get the declination of the objects that barely skim above your northern (or southern) horizon. For instance, from a latitude of 40 degrees north, everything north of a declination of +50° is circumpolar. From the Southern Hemisphere, at a latitude of 20° south, then everything south of -70° declination is circumpolar, above your southern horizon.

We in the Northern Hemisphere are lucky to have a moderately bright star, Polaris, nearly coinciding with the north celestial pole: the point in the sky that’s at zenith (straight overhead) at the Earth’s North Pole.

Polaris at the center of the circle

Draw an imaginary line straight down from Polaris, the North Star, to the horizon, and presto, you have what it takes to draw out the circle of circumpolar stars in your sky.

For people in the Northern Hemisphere, Polaris nearly pinpoints the center of the great big circle of circumpolar stars on the sky’s dome. And the imaginary vertical line from Polaris to the horizon depicts the radius measure. (See the chart below, which has this line drawn in for you.)

So let your arm serve as a circle compass, enabling you to envision the circle of circumpolar stars with your mind’s eye. Closer to the equator, the circle of circumpolar stars grows smaller; nearer to the North Pole (or South Pole) the circle of circumpolar stars grows larger.

In the Northern Hemisphere, an imaginary vertical line from the north celestial pole to your horizon serves as a radius measure for the circle of circumpolar stars in your sky. The closer you are to the Earth’s North Pole, the closer the north celestial pole is to your zenith (overhead point). Chart via EarthSky.

Circumpolar stars in Southern Hemisphere

This technique for locating the circle of circumpolar stars works in the Southern Hemisphere, as well. However, it’s trickier to star-hop to the south celestial pole: the point on the sky’s dome that’s at zenith over the Earth’s South Pole. Thus, practiced stargazers in the Southern Hemisphere rely on the Southern Cross, and key stars, to star-hop to the south celestial pole.

The Southern Cross is circumpolar anywhere south of 35 degrees south latitude; yet, in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s the W or M-shaped constellation Cassiopeia that’s circumpolar at all places north of 35 degrees north latitude.

Polaris and Cassiopeia

By the way, Cassiopeia lies on the opposite side of Polaris from the Big Dipper. So, from mid-northern latitudes, the Big Dipper and Polaris help you to locate Cassiopeia.

If Cassiopeia is circumpolar in your sky, then the Southern Cross never climbs above your horizon. Conversely, if the Southern Cross is circumpolar in your sky, then the constellation Cassiopeia never climbs above the horizon.

As seen from the tropics (and a part of the subtropics), neither the Southern Cross nor Cassiopeia is circumpolar. From this part of the world, the Southern Cross rises over the southern horizon when Cassiopeia sinks below the northern horizon. Conversely, Cassiopeia rises over the northern horizon when the Southern Cross sinks below the southern horizon.

Circumpolar star trail gallery

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Eddie Little of North Carolina captured the stars circling around Polaris, the North Star, on January 2, 2025, and wrote: “I had a mostly cloudless, nearly moonless night on one of the longest nights of the year. Approximately 12 hours of shooting. 1667 individual 30 second exposures were merged with star trails.” Thank you, Eddie! Polaris, our North Star, is in the center of the star trails.

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Amrinderjit Singh captured these star trails from Pangong Lake, nestled 14,300 feet (4,350 meters) above sea level in the Himalayas. Amrinderjit wrote: “Behold the mesmerizing dance of stars. As the night falls, it transforms into a celestial canvas, painted with streaks of yellow, blue, and pink, courtesy of the star trails swirling above. Each streak represents the movement of Earth beneath the starlit sky, a silent yet profound reminder of our place in the cosmos. Capturing this moment was a blend of patience and wonder as I marveled at nature’s masterpiece unfolding before my eyes.” Thanks, Amrinderjit!

Steve Torrence made this video of circumpolar stars from near the equator on June 21, 2016. Video via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).

Bottom line: Circumpolar stars stay above the horizon all hours of the day, every day of the year. Although you can’t see them, they’re up even in the daytime.

Polaris is the present-day North Star of Earth

Read more: Use the Southern Cross to find due south

The post Circumpolar stars never rise or set and depend on latitude first appeared on EarthSky.

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View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Rui Santos in Amor, Leiria, Portugal, shared this composite image of star trails on February 16, 2025, and wrote: “We can’t feel it, but everything is in motion. Everything moves, even when it seems still. And nature is never the same twice; it is constantly changing, in a vivid and silent way.” Thank you, Rui! Read more about circumpolar stars below.

EarthSky’s 2026 lunar calendar shows the moon phase for every day of the year. Get yours today!

Circumpolar stars circle the celestial pole

The closer you are to either of Earth’s poles, the more circumpolar stars you see. Circumpolar stars neither rise nor set but stay above the horizon at all hours of the day, every day of the year. Even when you can’t see them – when the sun is out and it’s daytime – these stars are up there. They are circling endlessly around the sky’s north or south celestial pole.

For instance, the stars of the famous Big Dipper asterism are circumpolar at all latitudes north of 41 degrees north latitude, which includes the northern half of the mainland United States and most of Europe.

The Big Dipper and the W-shaped constellation Cassiopeia circle around Polaris, the North Star, in a period of 23 hours and 56 minutes. The Dipper is circumpolar at 41 degrees north latitude, and all latitudes farther north. Image via Mjchael/ Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 2.5).

No circumpolar stars at Earth’s equator

How many circumpolar stars appear in your sky depends on where you are. For example, at Earth’s North and South Poles, every visible star is circumpolar. That is, at Earth’s North Pole, every star north of the celestial equator is circumpolar, while every star south of the celestial equator stays below the horizon. On the other hand, at the Earth’s South Pole, it’s the exact opposite. That’s where every star south of the celestial equator is circumpolar, whereas every star north of the celestial equator remains beneath the horizon.

Meanwhile at the Earth’s equator, no star is circumpolar because all the stars rise and set daily in that part of the world. You can (theoretically) see every star in the night sky over the course of one year. Of course, things like clouds and horizon haze get in the way.

Circumpolar stars and where you live

Places between the equator and poles have some stars that are circumpolar, some stars that rise and set daily (like the sun), and some stars that remain below the horizon all year round. In short, the closer you are to the North or South Pole, the greater the circle of circumpolar stars; the closer you are to the Earth’s equator, the smaller the circle of circumpolar stars.

Here is how to determine what is circumpolar from your location. Subtract your latitude from 90 and you get the declination of the objects that barely skim above your northern (or southern) horizon. For instance, from a latitude of 40 degrees north, everything north of a declination of +50° is circumpolar. From the Southern Hemisphere, at a latitude of 20° south, then everything south of -70° declination is circumpolar, above your southern horizon.

We in the Northern Hemisphere are lucky to have a moderately bright star, Polaris, nearly coinciding with the north celestial pole: the point in the sky that’s at zenith (straight overhead) at the Earth’s North Pole.

Polaris at the center of the circle

Draw an imaginary line straight down from Polaris, the North Star, to the horizon, and presto, you have what it takes to draw out the circle of circumpolar stars in your sky.

For people in the Northern Hemisphere, Polaris nearly pinpoints the center of the great big circle of circumpolar stars on the sky’s dome. And the imaginary vertical line from Polaris to the horizon depicts the radius measure. (See the chart below, which has this line drawn in for you.)

So let your arm serve as a circle compass, enabling you to envision the circle of circumpolar stars with your mind’s eye. Closer to the equator, the circle of circumpolar stars grows smaller; nearer to the North Pole (or South Pole) the circle of circumpolar stars grows larger.

In the Northern Hemisphere, an imaginary vertical line from the north celestial pole to your horizon serves as a radius measure for the circle of circumpolar stars in your sky. The closer you are to the Earth’s North Pole, the closer the north celestial pole is to your zenith (overhead point). Chart via EarthSky.

Circumpolar stars in Southern Hemisphere

This technique for locating the circle of circumpolar stars works in the Southern Hemisphere, as well. However, it’s trickier to star-hop to the south celestial pole: the point on the sky’s dome that’s at zenith over the Earth’s South Pole. Thus, practiced stargazers in the Southern Hemisphere rely on the Southern Cross, and key stars, to star-hop to the south celestial pole.

The Southern Cross is circumpolar anywhere south of 35 degrees south latitude; yet, in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s the W or M-shaped constellation Cassiopeia that’s circumpolar at all places north of 35 degrees north latitude.

Polaris and Cassiopeia

By the way, Cassiopeia lies on the opposite side of Polaris from the Big Dipper. So, from mid-northern latitudes, the Big Dipper and Polaris help you to locate Cassiopeia.

If Cassiopeia is circumpolar in your sky, then the Southern Cross never climbs above your horizon. Conversely, if the Southern Cross is circumpolar in your sky, then the constellation Cassiopeia never climbs above the horizon.

As seen from the tropics (and a part of the subtropics), neither the Southern Cross nor Cassiopeia is circumpolar. From this part of the world, the Southern Cross rises over the southern horizon when Cassiopeia sinks below the northern horizon. Conversely, Cassiopeia rises over the northern horizon when the Southern Cross sinks below the southern horizon.

Circumpolar star trail gallery

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Eddie Little of North Carolina captured the stars circling around Polaris, the North Star, on January 2, 2025, and wrote: “I had a mostly cloudless, nearly moonless night on one of the longest nights of the year. Approximately 12 hours of shooting. 1667 individual 30 second exposures were merged with star trails.” Thank you, Eddie! Polaris, our North Star, is in the center of the star trails.

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Amrinderjit Singh captured these star trails from Pangong Lake, nestled 14,300 feet (4,350 meters) above sea level in the Himalayas. Amrinderjit wrote: “Behold the mesmerizing dance of stars. As the night falls, it transforms into a celestial canvas, painted with streaks of yellow, blue, and pink, courtesy of the star trails swirling above. Each streak represents the movement of Earth beneath the starlit sky, a silent yet profound reminder of our place in the cosmos. Capturing this moment was a blend of patience and wonder as I marveled at nature’s masterpiece unfolding before my eyes.” Thanks, Amrinderjit!

Steve Torrence made this video of circumpolar stars from near the equator on June 21, 2016. Video via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).

Bottom line: Circumpolar stars stay above the horizon all hours of the day, every day of the year. Although you can’t see them, they’re up even in the daytime.

Polaris is the present-day North Star of Earth

Read more: Use the Southern Cross to find due south

The post Circumpolar stars never rise or set and depend on latitude first appeared on EarthSky.

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Artemis 2 moon launch now set for March 6

Artemis 2 stands poised on the launchpad ahead of its possible March 6, 2026, launch. Soon, Artemis will become the first mission in more than half a century to carry people around the moon, before returning to Earth. Image via NASA/ Ben Smegelsky.

Artemis 2 astronauts quarantine ahead of March 6 launch

On February 20, 2026, NASA said the four Artemis 2 astronauts – Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen – had entered quarantine in Houston in preparation for their upcoming moon launch. They’ll soon become the first humans to fly around the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. The launch opportunity will come on March 6. These two weeks of quarantine are meant to limit the exposure they have to germs, so they can be in good health during their expedition. The crew will fly to Kennedy Space Center five days before the launch.

Soon, possibly on March 6, Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hansen will embark on their 10-day journey. They’ll fly past the moon on a “free-return trajectory,” venturing further into space than any humans have traveled since the Apollo era.

On February 19, NASA completed a wet dress rehearsal for this momentous event. During this rehearsal, technicians oversaw the systems, paying particular attention to the liquid hydrogen fueling operations. NASA said that during the wet rehearsal:

Engineers loaded more than 700,000 gallons of liquid propellant into the rocket, sent a closeout crew to the launch pad to demonstrate closing the Orion spacecraft’s hatches, and completed two runs of terminal count — the final phase of the launch countdown. … Hydrogen gas concentrations remained under allowable limits, giving engineers confidence in new seals installed in an interface used to route fuel to the rocket.

The wet rehearsal was not without its bumps. NASA indicated a “brief” loss of communications in the Launch Control Center early in the fueling operation. But engineers were able to isolate the issue to a specific piece of ground equipment in the Launch Control Center.

So the Artemis launch is still a “go,” with the first available date on March 6. And launchpad preparations are continuing.

Launch dates

For the possible March 2026 launch dates, see the calendar below:

NASA said the Artemis 2 launch would occur no earlier than these dates in March. Image via NASA.

Love the moon? EarthSky’s 2026 lunar calendar shows the moon phase for every day of the year. Get yours today!

Hydrogen leak delay

NASA said on Tuesday, February 2, 2026, that the Artemis 2 mission – carrying four astronauts – will now make its historic journey around Earth’s moon no earlier than March, 2026. Previously, the launch had been slated for early February. The delay comes after issues arose during a critical test on Tuesday, February 2, of the huge rocket designed to boost the astronauts moonward. EarthSky’s Greg Diesel-Walck, who has been on the scene at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, said the issue was “hydrogen leaks” during the testing phase. NBC News reported:

Mission managers were conducting an elaborate launch day walkthrough, known as a ‘wet dress rehearsal,’ at Kennedy Space Center in Florida when engineers detected leaking hydrogen at the base of the Space Launch System rocket. NASA was forced to end the test a little after midnight ET, with around 5 minutes and 15 seconds remaining in the simulated launch countdown.

Prior to the February 2 tests, the mission appeared to be delayed due to the cold weather at Kennedy Space Center, which many commented was “eerily similar” to the cold weather on the morning of the 1986 Space Shuttle explosion.

Reid Wiseman – one of the brave astronauts set to fly around the moon – shared this view of the Artemis 2 rocket on January 17, 2026, as it was rolling out to historic Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The rocket still sits there, poised for blastoff. But its mission to send 4 astronauts around the moon and back has been delayed. Image via Reid Wiseman/ NASA.

January 17: Artemis 2 rocket rolls out to the launchpad

The Artemis 2 spacecraft is poised to go to the moon! NASA rolled out the Artemis 2 rocket on Saturday, January 17, 2026. So the final steps are underway for the first crewed moon mission in more than 50 years. Artemis 2 won’t land on the moon. But it will carry astronauts on a 10-day mission around the moon and back.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, the journey to historic Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida took some 12 hours. And, now that the rocket and spacecraft have reached the launchpad, testing will begin. NASA said that by the end of January, we can expect a wet dress rehearsal, when teams load the rocket fuel and perform a countdown without the astronauts present.

And then the mission will launch, with astronauts aboard. For this mission to the moon, Earth and the moon have to be in specific alignments at launch time. The earliest launch window is on February 6, 2026. So the possible dates of launch through April 2026 are as follows:

• February 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11
• March 6, 7, 8, 9 and 11
• April 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6

View larger. | We’re going back to the moon! And soon. This is the Artemis 2 planned figure-8 path through space, plus its mission goals. Image via NASA.

What is the Artemis 2 moon mission?

No nation has sent humans anywhere near the moon since Apollo 17 in December 1972. All crewed missions since then have remained in low Earth orbit, meaning humans haven’t traveled to the moon’s distance in more than 50 years. But that’s about to change.

The Artemis 2 mission – a crewed flight around the moon – could launch as early as February 2026. Boeing is the prime contractor for the mighty Space Launch System (SLS) that will propel the astronauts into Earth orbit. The astronauts will ride in Orion, NASA’s deep-space crew capsule, built by Lockheed. After reaching orbit, Orion will separate from the rocket’s upper stage, the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS). And the Orion module will then fire its engine for the all-important Trans-Lunar Injection Burn, which will place the astronauts onto their figure-8 path around the moon and back.

Orion will follow a free-return trajectory, which is the same safety approach used during Apollo. Even without further engine firings, the spacecraft would loop around the moon and naturally return home.

But on its way to the moon and back, the Orion crew capsule will be able to make small burns. These will allow for more precision in the angle at which the craft encounters the moon, and returns to Earth for splashdown.

After a successful Artemis 2 mission, the following mission, Artemis 3, will be the first mission to return humans to the moon’s surface since the Apollo missions of the 1960s and ’70s. Artemis 3, originally slated for September 2026, has now been delayed until at least mid-2027.

Back in July 2024, the Artemis 2 moon rocket core (orange, lying horizontally), could be seen in front of NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Scientists and engineers had been at work inside the VAB through the late summer and fall, preparing for Artemis 2’s September 2025 launch (now delayed until as early as February 2026). Image via Greg Diesel Walck for EarthSky.

When will Artemis reach the moon?

The goal of Artemis is to return astronauts to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. The program is in some sense a stepping-stone mission. Ultimate goals include a lunar base and human missions to Mars.

Artemis 1 successfully completed its mission in 2022 with an uncrewed test flight that orbited the moon. Artemis 2 will send a crewed mission around the moon. And Artemis 3 will return humans to the lunar surface.

And Artemis 4, another mission to take humans to the moon, was supposed to follow no earlier than September 2028. Of the four missions, Artemis 4 is the most ambitious. Its goals include:

• Multiple launches and spacecraft dockings in lunar orbit.
• Delivering an International Habitation (I-Hab) module to the Gateway space station in lunar orbit.
• Landing two astronauts on the moon, where they will spend a week collecting samples and conducting science experiments, rover operations, and moon walks.

Here’s NASA’s uncrewed Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft capturing a selfie as it flew near the moon in November 2022. Image via NASA.

The astronauts who will circle the moon with Artemis

The four Artemis 2 astronauts have already been chosen and were announced on April 3, 2023. They are Christina Hammock Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Canadian Jeremy Hansen. Learn more about them below.

Here they are. @SenBillNelson announces the #Artemis II crew, the next astronauts to fly around the Moon:@Astro_Christina@Astro_Jeremy@AstroVicGlover@Astro_Reid

We go together. https://t.co/XdUizg2Wye pic.twitter.com/6Yo4I2lKeJ

— NASA (@NASA) April 3, 2023

They're going to the Moon! Introducing the #Artemis II astronauts:

Reid Wiseman (@astro_reid), Commander
Victor Glover (@AstroVicGlover), Pilot
Christina Koch (@Astro_Christina), Mission specialist
Jeremy Hanson (@Astro_Jeremy), Mission specialisthttps://t.co/Hy1110MOEi pic.twitter.com/SeETL5iURu

— NASA's Johnson Space Center (@NASA_Johnson) April 3, 2023

Christina Koch

Meet the first member of our #Artemis II Moon crew: mission specialist @Astro_Christina!

Christina Koch visited the @Space_Station in 2019, where she took part in the first all-woman spacewalk. She began her career as an electrical engineer at @NASAGoddard. pic.twitter.com/mi82SayXUm

— NASA (@NASA) April 3, 2023

Victor Glover

Our #Artemis II pilot is @AstroVicGlover!

Victor Glover is part of our 2013 class of @NASA_Astronauts and was the pilot for NASA’s @SpaceX Crew-1 mission. He’s logged 3,000 flight hours in more than 40 different aircraft, and will pilot @NASA_Orion around the Moon. pic.twitter.com/P0zJ8pwaeL

— NASA (@NASA) April 3, 2023

Reid Wiseman

…and rounding out our #Artemis II Moon crew: mission commander @Astro_Reid!

Reid Wiseman lived & worked aboard the @Space_Station as a flight engineer in 2014. He also commanded the undersea research mission NEEMO21, and most recently served as Chief of the @NASA_Astronauts. pic.twitter.com/AincR66wpf

— NASA (@NASA) April 3, 2023

Jeremy Hansen

Representing the @csa_asc on #Artemis II to the Moon is @Astro_Jeremy, from London, Ontario.

Jeremy Hansen was a fighter pilot before joining CSA, and currently works with NASA on astronaut training and mission operations. This will be Hansen’s first mission in space. pic.twitter.com/zIVetAQeFE

— NASA (@NASA) April 3, 2023

The vision of the Artemis program

Ultimately, the Artemis program aims to send the first humans back to the moon this decade. When they go, they’ll be aiming for the moon’s south pole, a place that scientists – as discovered in recent decades – has large amounts of water ice. Water contains oxygen, so processing it will make it possible for future astronauts to stay longer.

Someday, visionaries still hope, we will have a permanent presence on the moon, and we will go to Mars.

Indeed, such dreams are an integral part of humanity’s natural wanderlust in the 21st century. And so future historians might look back at our time – and at the Artemis missions – as the moment humanity took a true giant leap to space, maybe this time for good.

Are we going to BOTH the moon AND Mars? EarthSky’s Deborah Byrd spoke with Eric Berger – the senior space editor at Ars Technica – on March 24, 2025, about the Artemis mission, and about what we know so far about the plan to go to Mars. Watch the video in the player above or on YouTube.

Bottom line: On February 20, 2026, NASA said the 4 astronauts who will fly aboard Artemis 2 have entered quarantine ahead of the March 6 launch opportunity.

Read more: New NASA moon suit makes its debut

Read more: Ice on the moon is widespread, new study shows

The post Artemis 2 moon launch now set for March 6 first appeared on EarthSky.

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/PS869Ib

Artemis 2 stands poised on the launchpad ahead of its possible March 6, 2026, launch. Soon, Artemis will become the first mission in more than half a century to carry people around the moon, before returning to Earth. Image via NASA/ Ben Smegelsky.

Artemis 2 astronauts quarantine ahead of March 6 launch

On February 20, 2026, NASA said the four Artemis 2 astronauts – Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen – had entered quarantine in Houston in preparation for their upcoming moon launch. They’ll soon become the first humans to fly around the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. The launch opportunity will come on March 6. These two weeks of quarantine are meant to limit the exposure they have to germs, so they can be in good health during their expedition. The crew will fly to Kennedy Space Center five days before the launch.

Soon, possibly on March 6, Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hansen will embark on their 10-day journey. They’ll fly past the moon on a “free-return trajectory,” venturing further into space than any humans have traveled since the Apollo era.

On February 19, NASA completed a wet dress rehearsal for this momentous event. During this rehearsal, technicians oversaw the systems, paying particular attention to the liquid hydrogen fueling operations. NASA said that during the wet rehearsal:

Engineers loaded more than 700,000 gallons of liquid propellant into the rocket, sent a closeout crew to the launch pad to demonstrate closing the Orion spacecraft’s hatches, and completed two runs of terminal count — the final phase of the launch countdown. … Hydrogen gas concentrations remained under allowable limits, giving engineers confidence in new seals installed in an interface used to route fuel to the rocket.

The wet rehearsal was not without its bumps. NASA indicated a “brief” loss of communications in the Launch Control Center early in the fueling operation. But engineers were able to isolate the issue to a specific piece of ground equipment in the Launch Control Center.

So the Artemis launch is still a “go,” with the first available date on March 6. And launchpad preparations are continuing.

Launch dates

For the possible March 2026 launch dates, see the calendar below:

NASA said the Artemis 2 launch would occur no earlier than these dates in March. Image via NASA.

Love the moon? EarthSky’s 2026 lunar calendar shows the moon phase for every day of the year. Get yours today!

Hydrogen leak delay

NASA said on Tuesday, February 2, 2026, that the Artemis 2 mission – carrying four astronauts – will now make its historic journey around Earth’s moon no earlier than March, 2026. Previously, the launch had been slated for early February. The delay comes after issues arose during a critical test on Tuesday, February 2, of the huge rocket designed to boost the astronauts moonward. EarthSky’s Greg Diesel-Walck, who has been on the scene at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, said the issue was “hydrogen leaks” during the testing phase. NBC News reported:

Mission managers were conducting an elaborate launch day walkthrough, known as a ‘wet dress rehearsal,’ at Kennedy Space Center in Florida when engineers detected leaking hydrogen at the base of the Space Launch System rocket. NASA was forced to end the test a little after midnight ET, with around 5 minutes and 15 seconds remaining in the simulated launch countdown.

Prior to the February 2 tests, the mission appeared to be delayed due to the cold weather at Kennedy Space Center, which many commented was “eerily similar” to the cold weather on the morning of the 1986 Space Shuttle explosion.

Reid Wiseman – one of the brave astronauts set to fly around the moon – shared this view of the Artemis 2 rocket on January 17, 2026, as it was rolling out to historic Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The rocket still sits there, poised for blastoff. But its mission to send 4 astronauts around the moon and back has been delayed. Image via Reid Wiseman/ NASA.

January 17: Artemis 2 rocket rolls out to the launchpad

The Artemis 2 spacecraft is poised to go to the moon! NASA rolled out the Artemis 2 rocket on Saturday, January 17, 2026. So the final steps are underway for the first crewed moon mission in more than 50 years. Artemis 2 won’t land on the moon. But it will carry astronauts on a 10-day mission around the moon and back.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, the journey to historic Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida took some 12 hours. And, now that the rocket and spacecraft have reached the launchpad, testing will begin. NASA said that by the end of January, we can expect a wet dress rehearsal, when teams load the rocket fuel and perform a countdown without the astronauts present.

And then the mission will launch, with astronauts aboard. For this mission to the moon, Earth and the moon have to be in specific alignments at launch time. The earliest launch window is on February 6, 2026. So the possible dates of launch through April 2026 are as follows:

• February 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11
• March 6, 7, 8, 9 and 11
• April 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6

View larger. | We’re going back to the moon! And soon. This is the Artemis 2 planned figure-8 path through space, plus its mission goals. Image via NASA.

What is the Artemis 2 moon mission?

No nation has sent humans anywhere near the moon since Apollo 17 in December 1972. All crewed missions since then have remained in low Earth orbit, meaning humans haven’t traveled to the moon’s distance in more than 50 years. But that’s about to change.

The Artemis 2 mission – a crewed flight around the moon – could launch as early as February 2026. Boeing is the prime contractor for the mighty Space Launch System (SLS) that will propel the astronauts into Earth orbit. The astronauts will ride in Orion, NASA’s deep-space crew capsule, built by Lockheed. After reaching orbit, Orion will separate from the rocket’s upper stage, the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS). And the Orion module will then fire its engine for the all-important Trans-Lunar Injection Burn, which will place the astronauts onto their figure-8 path around the moon and back.

Orion will follow a free-return trajectory, which is the same safety approach used during Apollo. Even without further engine firings, the spacecraft would loop around the moon and naturally return home.

But on its way to the moon and back, the Orion crew capsule will be able to make small burns. These will allow for more precision in the angle at which the craft encounters the moon, and returns to Earth for splashdown.

After a successful Artemis 2 mission, the following mission, Artemis 3, will be the first mission to return humans to the moon’s surface since the Apollo missions of the 1960s and ’70s. Artemis 3, originally slated for September 2026, has now been delayed until at least mid-2027.

Back in July 2024, the Artemis 2 moon rocket core (orange, lying horizontally), could be seen in front of NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Scientists and engineers had been at work inside the VAB through the late summer and fall, preparing for Artemis 2’s September 2025 launch (now delayed until as early as February 2026). Image via Greg Diesel Walck for EarthSky.

When will Artemis reach the moon?

The goal of Artemis is to return astronauts to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. The program is in some sense a stepping-stone mission. Ultimate goals include a lunar base and human missions to Mars.

Artemis 1 successfully completed its mission in 2022 with an uncrewed test flight that orbited the moon. Artemis 2 will send a crewed mission around the moon. And Artemis 3 will return humans to the lunar surface.

And Artemis 4, another mission to take humans to the moon, was supposed to follow no earlier than September 2028. Of the four missions, Artemis 4 is the most ambitious. Its goals include:

• Multiple launches and spacecraft dockings in lunar orbit.
• Delivering an International Habitation (I-Hab) module to the Gateway space station in lunar orbit.
• Landing two astronauts on the moon, where they will spend a week collecting samples and conducting science experiments, rover operations, and moon walks.

Here’s NASA’s uncrewed Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft capturing a selfie as it flew near the moon in November 2022. Image via NASA.

The astronauts who will circle the moon with Artemis

The four Artemis 2 astronauts have already been chosen and were announced on April 3, 2023. They are Christina Hammock Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Canadian Jeremy Hansen. Learn more about them below.

Here they are. @SenBillNelson announces the #Artemis II crew, the next astronauts to fly around the Moon:@Astro_Christina@Astro_Jeremy@AstroVicGlover@Astro_Reid

We go together. https://t.co/XdUizg2Wye pic.twitter.com/6Yo4I2lKeJ

— NASA (@NASA) April 3, 2023

They're going to the Moon! Introducing the #Artemis II astronauts:

Reid Wiseman (@astro_reid), Commander
Victor Glover (@AstroVicGlover), Pilot
Christina Koch (@Astro_Christina), Mission specialist
Jeremy Hanson (@Astro_Jeremy), Mission specialisthttps://t.co/Hy1110MOEi pic.twitter.com/SeETL5iURu

— NASA's Johnson Space Center (@NASA_Johnson) April 3, 2023

Christina Koch

Meet the first member of our #Artemis II Moon crew: mission specialist @Astro_Christina!

Christina Koch visited the @Space_Station in 2019, where she took part in the first all-woman spacewalk. She began her career as an electrical engineer at @NASAGoddard. pic.twitter.com/mi82SayXUm

— NASA (@NASA) April 3, 2023

Victor Glover

Our #Artemis II pilot is @AstroVicGlover!

Victor Glover is part of our 2013 class of @NASA_Astronauts and was the pilot for NASA’s @SpaceX Crew-1 mission. He’s logged 3,000 flight hours in more than 40 different aircraft, and will pilot @NASA_Orion around the Moon. pic.twitter.com/P0zJ8pwaeL

— NASA (@NASA) April 3, 2023

Reid Wiseman

…and rounding out our #Artemis II Moon crew: mission commander @Astro_Reid!

Reid Wiseman lived & worked aboard the @Space_Station as a flight engineer in 2014. He also commanded the undersea research mission NEEMO21, and most recently served as Chief of the @NASA_Astronauts. pic.twitter.com/AincR66wpf

— NASA (@NASA) April 3, 2023

Jeremy Hansen

Representing the @csa_asc on #Artemis II to the Moon is @Astro_Jeremy, from London, Ontario.

Jeremy Hansen was a fighter pilot before joining CSA, and currently works with NASA on astronaut training and mission operations. This will be Hansen’s first mission in space. pic.twitter.com/zIVetAQeFE

— NASA (@NASA) April 3, 2023

The vision of the Artemis program

Ultimately, the Artemis program aims to send the first humans back to the moon this decade. When they go, they’ll be aiming for the moon’s south pole, a place that scientists – as discovered in recent decades – has large amounts of water ice. Water contains oxygen, so processing it will make it possible for future astronauts to stay longer.

Someday, visionaries still hope, we will have a permanent presence on the moon, and we will go to Mars.

Indeed, such dreams are an integral part of humanity’s natural wanderlust in the 21st century. And so future historians might look back at our time – and at the Artemis missions – as the moment humanity took a true giant leap to space, maybe this time for good.

Are we going to BOTH the moon AND Mars? EarthSky’s Deborah Byrd spoke with Eric Berger – the senior space editor at Ars Technica – on March 24, 2025, about the Artemis mission, and about what we know so far about the plan to go to Mars. Watch the video in the player above or on YouTube.

Bottom line: On February 20, 2026, NASA said the 4 astronauts who will fly aboard Artemis 2 have entered quarantine ahead of the March 6 launch opportunity.

Read more: New NASA moon suit makes its debut

Read more: Ice on the moon is widespread, new study shows

The post Artemis 2 moon launch now set for March 6 first appeared on EarthSky.

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/PS869Ib

Ice-free oases on Snowball Earth sheltered early life

Artist’s concept of our planet during a period of widespread snow and ice, known as a Snowball Earth period. A new study says Snowball Earth wasn’t fully frozen. Instead, ice-free oases might have existed, providing safe havens for early complex life. Image via Oleg Kuznetsov/ Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

EarthSky’s 2026 lunar calendar shows the moon phase for every day of the year. Get yours today!

By Chloe Griffin and Thomas Gernon, University of Southampton

Ice-free oases on Snowball Earth sheltered early life

To an astronaut today, the Earth looks like a vibrant blue marble from space. But 700 million years ago, it would have looked like a blinding white snowball. This seems an unlikely cradle for life. Yet new evidence suggests the frozen ocean featured ice-free oases, providing a lifeline for our earliest complex ancestors.

During the Cryogenian period, from 720 million to 635 million years ago, massive ice sheets covered Earth from the poles to the tropics. Surface temperatures were as low as -50° C (-58° F).

Because the bright white surface of the planet reflected (rather than absorbed) the sun’s energy – a phenomenon known as the albedo effect – the Earth remained locked in this extreme climate state, dubbed “Snowball Earth,” for tens of millions of years.

Scientists have long thought that when the ocean is sealed under a kilometer-thick (.6 mile) shell of ice, the usual connection between the atmosphere and oceans would be prevented, muting climate variability. That is, normal short-term variations in temperature, precipitation, or wind patterns would be limited.

However, our new research, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, challenges this status quo. By forensically decoding ancient rocks, we’ve discovered that the climate became briefly more dynamic than normally expected on Snowball Earth. In fact, it even oscillated to a rhythm strikingly like our own today.

Decoding climate cycles on Snowball Earth

The breakthrough came from the Garvellach Islands off the west coast of Scotland. These rocks formed during the Sturtian glaciation (720–660 million years ago), the first of two Snowball Earth events. The second was the Marinoan (650–635 million years ago). The Scottish islands contain a unique, exquisitely preserved archive of Snowball Earth, locking in the secrets of this weird ancient world.

Specifically, laminated sedimentary rocks, or varves, act as natural data loggers. Picture a lake today: sediment settles quietly through the water column and on to the lake bed. Over time, these layers of sediment build up at the bottom of the lake. Thousands or millions of years later, geologists can use the physical, chemical and biological information trapped in the now ancient lake sediments to track how environmental conditions – including climatic ones – changed over time.

While modern sediments like this are easy to find, detailed climate archives from deep time are vanishingly rare. That has left us in the dark about how our planet’s climate behaved during Snowball Earth … until now.

The remote Garvellach Islands off the west coast of Scotland, where the researchers found their clues to Snowball Earth’s true nature. Image via Nick R/ Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 2.0).

The new study

We investigated a unique pile of rocks six meters (20 feet) thick, containing around 2,600 such varves, on the Garvellach Islands. What they revealed was, quite frankly, jaw-dropping. Microscopic and statistical analysis showed that these layers weren’t uniform, as you might expect locked in a Snowball state.

Instead, they conform to predictable cycles occurring over timescales of a few years to centuries. Perhaps yet more surprising is that almost the full suite of climate rhythms we know from today are preserved; from annual seasons to modern phenomena like El Niño (a climate pattern of warming sea surface temperatures in parts of the Pacific Ocean), and longer-term cycles linked to solar activity lasting decades to centuries.

We certainly wouldn’t have expected El Niño cycles, which happen every two to seven years today. This requires a seamless communication between the atmosphere and oceans, which is hard to envision on an ice-covered world.

Another artist’s concept of Snowball Earth. Image via NASA/ University of Washington.

A (partially) ice-free ocean?

The cycles in these ancient sediments do raise an intriguing possibility: could parts of the ocean have been ice-free during Snowball Earth?

To get to the bottom of this, we used computer climate simulations to test different climate scenarios. Put simply, that means seeing how changing the amount of ice on the oceans changes the patterns of surface temperature across the globe. We found that when the ocean was frozen completely solid, climate oscillations were largely suppressed.

Our simulations also showed that vast areas of open water weren’t needed to restart these oscillations; if just a small fraction of the ocean surface was ice free – say, 15% or so – atmosphere ocean interactions could have resumed.

Comparing the simulated climate records to the patterns we decoded in the rock record, we think these sediments most likely document a patch of open water in the tropics, sometimes called an oasis. Many scientists use such oases to reconcile the survival of life with the near-global glaciation.

Interestingly, several other lines of evidence suggest a partially ice-free ocean at roughly the same time. So, could our rocks provide evidence for temporary warming during Snowball Earth?

While they confirm temporary patches of warmth in the surface ocean, these rocks represent a snapshot of around 3,000 years in a multi-million-year glaciation; that is, likely a fleeting “Slushball” state within an otherwise frozen world. Another recent study even argues that liquid water could have persisted at 5° F (-15° C), but only if it were extremely salty.

Oases for life?

Crucially though, our new analysis shows that the climate system has an inherent tendency to oscillate, even under the most extreme conditions. Could these oases in the sea have been life-rafts for the earliest complex animals?

Perhaps the biggest paradox of Snowball Earth is that this hostile deep-freeze triggered a biological revolution. Around this time, the diversity and abundance of multicellular life exploded. Phosphorus-rich dust ground up by the very glaciers that threatened to extinguish it fuelled this event. Scientists think this happened during the warm interval between the two Snowball glaciations.

But for life to thrive after the ice, it first had to survive the second (Marinoan) glaciation. Our study offers a viable solution to this puzzle: if tropical oceans weren’t entirely frozen over, but held pockets of open water, these oases would have acted as habitable refuges.

Rather than a planet frozen solid, our work paints a picture of an “oscillating” world where thin cracks in the ice or more expansive patches of open water formed habitats that allowed – even encouraged – the colonization of life.

By maintaining biodiversity during Earth’s most extreme ice age, these oases ensured that when the ice finally melted away, life was ready to bloom into the complex ecosystems we see today, eventually leading to us.

Chloe Griffin, Research Fellow, School of Ocean & Earth Science, and Thomas Gernon, Professor in Earth & Climate Science, University of Southampton.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Bottom line: Scientists have found evidence for ice-free oases on Snowball Earth, which might have provided a lifeline for early complex life.

Read more: Enormous glaciers on Snowball Earth helped life evolve

The post Ice-free oases on Snowball Earth sheltered early life first appeared on EarthSky.

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/IgSrNAs

Artist’s concept of our planet during a period of widespread snow and ice, known as a Snowball Earth period. A new study says Snowball Earth wasn’t fully frozen. Instead, ice-free oases might have existed, providing safe havens for early complex life. Image via Oleg Kuznetsov/ Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

EarthSky’s 2026 lunar calendar shows the moon phase for every day of the year. Get yours today!

By Chloe Griffin and Thomas Gernon, University of Southampton

Ice-free oases on Snowball Earth sheltered early life

To an astronaut today, the Earth looks like a vibrant blue marble from space. But 700 million years ago, it would have looked like a blinding white snowball. This seems an unlikely cradle for life. Yet new evidence suggests the frozen ocean featured ice-free oases, providing a lifeline for our earliest complex ancestors.

During the Cryogenian period, from 720 million to 635 million years ago, massive ice sheets covered Earth from the poles to the tropics. Surface temperatures were as low as -50° C (-58° F).

Because the bright white surface of the planet reflected (rather than absorbed) the sun’s energy – a phenomenon known as the albedo effect – the Earth remained locked in this extreme climate state, dubbed “Snowball Earth,” for tens of millions of years.

Scientists have long thought that when the ocean is sealed under a kilometer-thick (.6 mile) shell of ice, the usual connection between the atmosphere and oceans would be prevented, muting climate variability. That is, normal short-term variations in temperature, precipitation, or wind patterns would be limited.

However, our new research, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, challenges this status quo. By forensically decoding ancient rocks, we’ve discovered that the climate became briefly more dynamic than normally expected on Snowball Earth. In fact, it even oscillated to a rhythm strikingly like our own today.

Decoding climate cycles on Snowball Earth

The breakthrough came from the Garvellach Islands off the west coast of Scotland. These rocks formed during the Sturtian glaciation (720–660 million years ago), the first of two Snowball Earth events. The second was the Marinoan (650–635 million years ago). The Scottish islands contain a unique, exquisitely preserved archive of Snowball Earth, locking in the secrets of this weird ancient world.

Specifically, laminated sedimentary rocks, or varves, act as natural data loggers. Picture a lake today: sediment settles quietly through the water column and on to the lake bed. Over time, these layers of sediment build up at the bottom of the lake. Thousands or millions of years later, geologists can use the physical, chemical and biological information trapped in the now ancient lake sediments to track how environmental conditions – including climatic ones – changed over time.

While modern sediments like this are easy to find, detailed climate archives from deep time are vanishingly rare. That has left us in the dark about how our planet’s climate behaved during Snowball Earth … until now.

The remote Garvellach Islands off the west coast of Scotland, where the researchers found their clues to Snowball Earth’s true nature. Image via Nick R/ Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 2.0).

The new study

We investigated a unique pile of rocks six meters (20 feet) thick, containing around 2,600 such varves, on the Garvellach Islands. What they revealed was, quite frankly, jaw-dropping. Microscopic and statistical analysis showed that these layers weren’t uniform, as you might expect locked in a Snowball state.

Instead, they conform to predictable cycles occurring over timescales of a few years to centuries. Perhaps yet more surprising is that almost the full suite of climate rhythms we know from today are preserved; from annual seasons to modern phenomena like El Niño (a climate pattern of warming sea surface temperatures in parts of the Pacific Ocean), and longer-term cycles linked to solar activity lasting decades to centuries.

We certainly wouldn’t have expected El Niño cycles, which happen every two to seven years today. This requires a seamless communication between the atmosphere and oceans, which is hard to envision on an ice-covered world.

Another artist’s concept of Snowball Earth. Image via NASA/ University of Washington.

A (partially) ice-free ocean?

The cycles in these ancient sediments do raise an intriguing possibility: could parts of the ocean have been ice-free during Snowball Earth?

To get to the bottom of this, we used computer climate simulations to test different climate scenarios. Put simply, that means seeing how changing the amount of ice on the oceans changes the patterns of surface temperature across the globe. We found that when the ocean was frozen completely solid, climate oscillations were largely suppressed.

Our simulations also showed that vast areas of open water weren’t needed to restart these oscillations; if just a small fraction of the ocean surface was ice free – say, 15% or so – atmosphere ocean interactions could have resumed.

Comparing the simulated climate records to the patterns we decoded in the rock record, we think these sediments most likely document a patch of open water in the tropics, sometimes called an oasis. Many scientists use such oases to reconcile the survival of life with the near-global glaciation.

Interestingly, several other lines of evidence suggest a partially ice-free ocean at roughly the same time. So, could our rocks provide evidence for temporary warming during Snowball Earth?

While they confirm temporary patches of warmth in the surface ocean, these rocks represent a snapshot of around 3,000 years in a multi-million-year glaciation; that is, likely a fleeting “Slushball” state within an otherwise frozen world. Another recent study even argues that liquid water could have persisted at 5° F (-15° C), but only if it were extremely salty.

Oases for life?

Crucially though, our new analysis shows that the climate system has an inherent tendency to oscillate, even under the most extreme conditions. Could these oases in the sea have been life-rafts for the earliest complex animals?

Perhaps the biggest paradox of Snowball Earth is that this hostile deep-freeze triggered a biological revolution. Around this time, the diversity and abundance of multicellular life exploded. Phosphorus-rich dust ground up by the very glaciers that threatened to extinguish it fuelled this event. Scientists think this happened during the warm interval between the two Snowball glaciations.

But for life to thrive after the ice, it first had to survive the second (Marinoan) glaciation. Our study offers a viable solution to this puzzle: if tropical oceans weren’t entirely frozen over, but held pockets of open water, these oases would have acted as habitable refuges.

Rather than a planet frozen solid, our work paints a picture of an “oscillating” world where thin cracks in the ice or more expansive patches of open water formed habitats that allowed – even encouraged – the colonization of life.

By maintaining biodiversity during Earth’s most extreme ice age, these oases ensured that when the ice finally melted away, life was ready to bloom into the complex ecosystems we see today, eventually leading to us.

Chloe Griffin, Research Fellow, School of Ocean & Earth Science, and Thomas Gernon, Professor in Earth & Climate Science, University of Southampton.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Bottom line: Scientists have found evidence for ice-free oases on Snowball Earth, which might have provided a lifeline for early complex life.

Read more: Enormous glaciers on Snowball Earth helped life evolve

The post Ice-free oases on Snowball Earth sheltered early life first appeared on EarthSky.

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Too many satellites? Is Earth’s orbit headed for catastrophe?

Here’s an astronomer’s view of a star obscured by streaks from Starlink satellites. Are there too many satellites in orbit around Earth? Image via Rafael Schmall/ NOIRLab.

• The number of satellites is growing rapidly with tens of thousands active and potentially over a million proposed. This raises risks of orbital crowding, collisions, light pollution, environmental harm and long-term damage to the night sky.
• Major cultural, environmental and cumulative impacts go largely unaddressed by current regulations. This is despite the rising risks, like debris cascades and atmospheric pollution from launches and reentries.
• Catastrophe isn’t inevitable. Governments and industry could require broader dark skies impact assessments, better global coordination and design changes to limit satellite numbers and reduce harm.

By Gregory Radisic, Bond University and Samantha Lawler, University of Regina

1 million satellites in orbit?

On January 30, 2026, SpaceX filed an application with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a megaconstellation of up to one million satellites to power data centers in space.

The proposal envisions satellites operating between 300 and 1,200 miles (500 and 2,000 km) in low Earth orbit. Some of the orbits are designed for near-constant exposure to sunlight. The public can currently submit comments on this proposal to the FCC.

SpaceX’s filing is just the latest among exponentially growing satellite megaconstellation proposals. Such satellites operate with a single purpose and have short replacement life cycles of about five years.

As of February 2026, approximately 14,000 active satellites are in orbit. An additional 1.23 million proposed satellite projects are in various stages of development. The approval process for these satellites focuses almost entirely on the limited technical info companies have to submit to regulators.

Cultural, spiritual and most environmental impacts aren’t taken into account. Should they be? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.

EarthSky’s 2026 lunar calendar is available now. Get yours today! Makes a great gift.

Too many satellites

At this scale of growth, the night sky will change globally and for generations to come.

Satellites in low-Earth orbit reflect sunlight for about two hours after sunset and before sunrise. Despite engineering efforts to make them less bright, truck-sized satellites from many megaconstellations look like moving points in the night sky. Projections show future satellites will significantly increase this light pollution.

In 2021, astronomers estimated that in less than a decade, one in every 15 points of light in the night sky would be a moving satellite. That estimate only included the 65,000 megaconstellation satellites proposed at the time.

Once deployed at a scale of millions, the impacts on the night sky may not be easily reversed.

While the average satellite only lasts about five years, companies design these megaconstellations for nearly continuous replacement and expansion. This locks in a continuous, industrialized presence in the night sky.

This graph breaks down the satellite launches per year by country. Image via ESA/ The Conversation.

All this is causing a space-based shifting baseline syndrome, where each new generation accepts a progressively more degraded night sky. Criss-crossing satellites become the new normal.

And for the first time in human history, this shifting baseline means kids today won’t grow up with the same night sky every previous generation of humanity had access to.

Visual representation of the increasing number of satellites. Image via The Conversation (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Houston, we have a ‘mega’ problem

Concerns over the sheer volume of proposed satellites come from many sides.

Scientific concerns include bright reflections and radio emissions from satellites that will disrupt astronomy. Industry experts also note traffic management and logistical concerns. There’s currently no form of unified space traffic management in the same way that exists in aviation, for example.

Megaconstellations also increase the risk of Kessler syndrome, a runaway chain reaction of collisions. There are already 50,000 pieces of debris in orbit that are 4 inches (10 cm) or larger. If satellites stopped all collision avoidance maneuvers, the latest data shows we can expect a major collision in 3.8 days.

Major cultural concerns abound, too. Satellite light pollution will negatively impact Indigenous uses of the night sky for long-standing oral traditions, navigation, hunting and spiritual traditions.

Launching so many satellites uses up vast amounts of fossil fuels, damaging the ozone layer. After the satellites have served their purpose, the end-of-life plan is to burn them up in the atmosphere. This poses another environmental concern as it deposits vast quantities of metals into the stratosphere, causing ozone depletion and other potentially harmful chemical reactions.

All this feeds into legal concerns. Under international space law, countries – not companies – are liable for harm caused by their space objects. Space lawyers are increasingly trying to understand if international space law can actually hold corporations or private individuals accountable. This is especially important as the risk of damage, death or permanent environmental damage grows.

We can no longer ignore the gaps in regulation

Currently, the main regulations concerning satellite proposals are technical, such as deciding which radio frequencies they will use. At national levels, regulators focus on launch safety, lessening environmental impacts on Earth, and liability if something goes wrong.

What these regulations don’t capture is how hundreds of thousands of bright satellites change the night sky for scientific study, navigation, Indigenous teaching and ceremony, and cultural continuity. These are not traditional “environmental” harms, nor are they technical engineering concerns. They’re cultural impacts that fall into a regulatory blind spot.

This is why the world needs a Dark Skies Impact Assessment, as proposed by space lawyers Gregory Radisic and Natalie Gillespie. It’s a systematic way to identify, document, and meaningfully consider all the impacts of a proposed satellite constellation before it goes ahead.

How would a Dark Sky Impact Assessment work?

First, evidence must be gathered from all stakeholders. Astronomers (both amateur and professional), atmospheric scientists, environmental researchers, cultural scholars, affected communities and industry all bring their perspectives.

Second, it’s essential to model any cumulative effects of the satellites. Assessments should analyze how constellations will change night sky visibility and skyglow, orbital congestion and the risk of casualties on the ground.

Third, it will define clear criteria for when unobstructed sky visibility is critical for science, navigation, education, cultural practice and shared human heritage.

Fourth, it must include mitigation pathways such as brightness reduction, orbital design changes and deployment adjustments to lessen harm. This should include incentives for using as few satellites as possible for a given project.

Finally, the findings must be transparent, independently reviewable and directly tied to licensing and policy decisions.

Spaceflight expert Jonathan McDowell discusses the hazards and consequences of overcrowding Earth’s near space with too many satellites and not enough regulation.

Dark Sky Impact Assessment is not a veto tool

A Dark Skies Impact Assessment doesn’t prevent space development. It clarifies trade-offs and improves decision making. It can lead to design choices that reduce brightness and visual interference, orbital configurations that lessen cultural impact, earlier and more meaningful consultation, and cultural considerations where harm can’t be avoided.

Most importantly, it ensures that communities affected by satellite constellations aren’t finding out about them after approval has already been granted and bright lights crawl across their skies.

The question is not whether the night sky will change. It’s already changing. Now is the time for governments and international institutions to design fair processes before those changes become permanent.

Gregory Radisic, fellow at the Centre for Space, Cyberspace and Data Law; Senior Teaching Fellow, Faculty of Law, Bond University

Samantha Lawler, Associate Professor of Astronomy, University of Regina

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Bottom line: The growing number of satellites poses an under-regulated threat of disaster for spaceflight. But it’s not too late to act!

Read more: 1 to 2 Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

The post Too many satellites? Is Earth’s orbit headed for catastrophe? first appeared on EarthSky.

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/P48wBSC

Here’s an astronomer’s view of a star obscured by streaks from Starlink satellites. Are there too many satellites in orbit around Earth? Image via Rafael Schmall/ NOIRLab.

• The number of satellites is growing rapidly with tens of thousands active and potentially over a million proposed. This raises risks of orbital crowding, collisions, light pollution, environmental harm and long-term damage to the night sky.
• Major cultural, environmental and cumulative impacts go largely unaddressed by current regulations. This is despite the rising risks, like debris cascades and atmospheric pollution from launches and reentries.
• Catastrophe isn’t inevitable. Governments and industry could require broader dark skies impact assessments, better global coordination and design changes to limit satellite numbers and reduce harm.

By Gregory Radisic, Bond University and Samantha Lawler, University of Regina

1 million satellites in orbit?

On January 30, 2026, SpaceX filed an application with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a megaconstellation of up to one million satellites to power data centers in space.

The proposal envisions satellites operating between 300 and 1,200 miles (500 and 2,000 km) in low Earth orbit. Some of the orbits are designed for near-constant exposure to sunlight. The public can currently submit comments on this proposal to the FCC.

SpaceX’s filing is just the latest among exponentially growing satellite megaconstellation proposals. Such satellites operate with a single purpose and have short replacement life cycles of about five years.

As of February 2026, approximately 14,000 active satellites are in orbit. An additional 1.23 million proposed satellite projects are in various stages of development. The approval process for these satellites focuses almost entirely on the limited technical info companies have to submit to regulators.

Cultural, spiritual and most environmental impacts aren’t taken into account. Should they be? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.

EarthSky’s 2026 lunar calendar is available now. Get yours today! Makes a great gift.

Too many satellites

At this scale of growth, the night sky will change globally and for generations to come.

Satellites in low-Earth orbit reflect sunlight for about two hours after sunset and before sunrise. Despite engineering efforts to make them less bright, truck-sized satellites from many megaconstellations look like moving points in the night sky. Projections show future satellites will significantly increase this light pollution.

In 2021, astronomers estimated that in less than a decade, one in every 15 points of light in the night sky would be a moving satellite. That estimate only included the 65,000 megaconstellation satellites proposed at the time.

Once deployed at a scale of millions, the impacts on the night sky may not be easily reversed.

While the average satellite only lasts about five years, companies design these megaconstellations for nearly continuous replacement and expansion. This locks in a continuous, industrialized presence in the night sky.

This graph breaks down the satellite launches per year by country. Image via ESA/ The Conversation.

All this is causing a space-based shifting baseline syndrome, where each new generation accepts a progressively more degraded night sky. Criss-crossing satellites become the new normal.

And for the first time in human history, this shifting baseline means kids today won’t grow up with the same night sky every previous generation of humanity had access to.

Visual representation of the increasing number of satellites. Image via The Conversation (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Houston, we have a ‘mega’ problem

Concerns over the sheer volume of proposed satellites come from many sides.

Scientific concerns include bright reflections and radio emissions from satellites that will disrupt astronomy. Industry experts also note traffic management and logistical concerns. There’s currently no form of unified space traffic management in the same way that exists in aviation, for example.

Megaconstellations also increase the risk of Kessler syndrome, a runaway chain reaction of collisions. There are already 50,000 pieces of debris in orbit that are 4 inches (10 cm) or larger. If satellites stopped all collision avoidance maneuvers, the latest data shows we can expect a major collision in 3.8 days.

Major cultural concerns abound, too. Satellite light pollution will negatively impact Indigenous uses of the night sky for long-standing oral traditions, navigation, hunting and spiritual traditions.

Launching so many satellites uses up vast amounts of fossil fuels, damaging the ozone layer. After the satellites have served their purpose, the end-of-life plan is to burn them up in the atmosphere. This poses another environmental concern as it deposits vast quantities of metals into the stratosphere, causing ozone depletion and other potentially harmful chemical reactions.

All this feeds into legal concerns. Under international space law, countries – not companies – are liable for harm caused by their space objects. Space lawyers are increasingly trying to understand if international space law can actually hold corporations or private individuals accountable. This is especially important as the risk of damage, death or permanent environmental damage grows.

We can no longer ignore the gaps in regulation

Currently, the main regulations concerning satellite proposals are technical, such as deciding which radio frequencies they will use. At national levels, regulators focus on launch safety, lessening environmental impacts on Earth, and liability if something goes wrong.

What these regulations don’t capture is how hundreds of thousands of bright satellites change the night sky for scientific study, navigation, Indigenous teaching and ceremony, and cultural continuity. These are not traditional “environmental” harms, nor are they technical engineering concerns. They’re cultural impacts that fall into a regulatory blind spot.

This is why the world needs a Dark Skies Impact Assessment, as proposed by space lawyers Gregory Radisic and Natalie Gillespie. It’s a systematic way to identify, document, and meaningfully consider all the impacts of a proposed satellite constellation before it goes ahead.

How would a Dark Sky Impact Assessment work?

First, evidence must be gathered from all stakeholders. Astronomers (both amateur and professional), atmospheric scientists, environmental researchers, cultural scholars, affected communities and industry all bring their perspectives.

Second, it’s essential to model any cumulative effects of the satellites. Assessments should analyze how constellations will change night sky visibility and skyglow, orbital congestion and the risk of casualties on the ground.

Third, it will define clear criteria for when unobstructed sky visibility is critical for science, navigation, education, cultural practice and shared human heritage.

Fourth, it must include mitigation pathways such as brightness reduction, orbital design changes and deployment adjustments to lessen harm. This should include incentives for using as few satellites as possible for a given project.

Finally, the findings must be transparent, independently reviewable and directly tied to licensing and policy decisions.

Spaceflight expert Jonathan McDowell discusses the hazards and consequences of overcrowding Earth’s near space with too many satellites and not enough regulation.

Dark Sky Impact Assessment is not a veto tool

A Dark Skies Impact Assessment doesn’t prevent space development. It clarifies trade-offs and improves decision making. It can lead to design choices that reduce brightness and visual interference, orbital configurations that lessen cultural impact, earlier and more meaningful consultation, and cultural considerations where harm can’t be avoided.

Most importantly, it ensures that communities affected by satellite constellations aren’t finding out about them after approval has already been granted and bright lights crawl across their skies.

The question is not whether the night sky will change. It’s already changing. Now is the time for governments and international institutions to design fair processes before those changes become permanent.

Gregory Radisic, fellow at the Centre for Space, Cyberspace and Data Law; Senior Teaching Fellow, Faculty of Law, Bond University

Samantha Lawler, Associate Professor of Astronomy, University of Regina

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Bottom line: The growing number of satellites poses an under-regulated threat of disaster for spaceflight. But it’s not too late to act!

Read more: 1 to 2 Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

The post Too many satellites? Is Earth’s orbit headed for catastrophe? first appeared on EarthSky.

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/P48wBSC

Meet Gemini the Twins, home to Jupiter and 2 bright stars

The constellation Gemini the Twins is high in the February evening sky. And in February 2026, the bright planet Jupiter is near the 2 brightest stars of Gemini. These stars are golden Pollux and white Castor. Pollux is the slightly brighter one. But Jupiter outshines them both! Chart via EarthSky.

EarthSky’s 2026 lunar calendar is available now. Get yours today! Makes a great gift.

Gemini, the constellation of the Twins

Most people see the constellation Gemini as just two bright stars – Castor and Pollux – sometimes called the Gemini twins. These two stars aren’t really twins. Pollux is brighter and more golden in color. Castor is slightly fainter and white. But both stars are bright, and they’re noticeable for being close together on the sky’s dome. From time immemorial, people have thought they looked like brother stars.

And in 2026, the bright planet Jupiter is among the stars of Gemini and near the twin stars. It’ll remain in Gemini through June when it moves in front of the constellation of Cancer the Crab.

Best viewing for this constellation

January, February and March are great for observing these stars. Then Gemini is well up in the east at nightfall. In early February, Gemini climbs highest in the sky around 10 p.m. local time. By the end of February, the constellation is highest around 9 p.m. That’s local time, the time on your clock, no matter where you live around the globe.

Gemini stays in view in the evening sky until around May. By late May and June, Gemini is found low in the west at nightfall, and Gemini’s two brightest stars – Castor and Pollux – fade into the sunset before the June 21 summer solstice. The sun annually passes in front of Gemini from about June 21 until July 20.

There’s also a fine star cluster visible in binoculars

The constellation Gemini the Twins. Castor and Pollux are considered the “twin” stars in the constellation. Nearby M35 is an open star cluster easily spotted in binoculars. Image via EarthSky.

Myths and lore

In skylore, Castor and Pollux were the sons of a mortal mother, Leda. Castor was the mortal brother, son of Tyndareus, and Pollux the immortal brother, son of Zeus. Castor and Pollux were joyfully united in spirit, yet sorrowfully divided by circumstance. When Castor was slain in battle, Pollux was inconsolable and begged Zeus to relieve him of the bonds of immortality. Zeus granted his request, and, to this day, Pollux and Castor stand reunited in the heavens, a tribute to the redemptive power of brotherly love.

Thus, the Greek myth of Castor and Pollux explores the inherit duality of life, of mortality and immortality forever intertwined.

The 2 bright stars Castor and Pollux each mark a starry eye of a Gemini Twin. If you have binoculars and a dark sky, be sure to check out Gemini’s beautiful star cluster, Messier 35, or M35, in western Gemini near the Taurus border. See it, at the foot of Castor? Image via AugPi/ Wikimedia Commons/ GFDL.

How to find Gemini from Orion

If you can pick out just one noticeable sky pattern in the February night sky, it’s probably the constellation Orion the Hunter. On February evenings, from the Northern Hemisphere, Orion is high in the south.

Orion is noticeable for its Belt stars, a short, straight row of three medium-bright stars. Look below Orion’s Belt for the very bright blue-white star Rigel. Now look above Orion’s Belt for the reddish star Betelgeuse. You can draw an imaginary line from Rigel through Betelgeuse to locate Castor and Pollux. Remember, you’ll be looking for two bright stars that are noticeably close together.

Facing south to southwest (from Northern Hemisphere locations) on January, February and March evenings, draw an imaginary line from Orion’s 2 bright stars – Rigel through Betelgeuse – to star-hop to Castor and Pollux. For a specific location and time of year, try Stellarium. Image via EarthSky.

How to find Gemini using the Big Dipper

The Big Dipper is an asterism, not a true constellation, but a very clear dipper-shaped pattern of stars. The Big Dipper is always located generally northward on the sky’s dome. Draw an imaginary line diagonally through the bowl of the Big Dipper, from the star Megrez through the star Merak. You are going in the direction opposite the Big Dipper handle. This line will point to Castor and Pollux.

Facing north (from Northern Hemisphere locations) on late evenings in January and February, and evenings in March. Draw an imaginary line diagonally through the Big Dipper bowl to locate Castor and Pollux. For a specific location and time of year, try Stellarium. Image via EarthSky.

Or use the moon to find Gemini

As the moon swings full circle through the constellations of the zodiac, it passes through Gemini for a few days each month. Check EarthSky Tonight – especially in the months of January, February and March – for posts showing you the moon near Castor and Pollux on specific dates.

Or play around with the online planetarium program, Stellarium. It can show you when the moon moves through Gemini every month (except during those months when Gemini is behind the sun).

Spotting Sirius when Gemini is high in the sky

By the way, Gemini and the nighttime’s brightest star, Sirius, reach their highest points in the sky at roughly the same time. At middle latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, we see Gemini’s brightest stars, Castor and Pollux, nearly overhead while Sirius sparkles quite low in our southern sky. (Sirius is always fairly low in the sky of northerners.) South of the equator, it’s the opposite: Sirius shines way up high while Gemini sits low in the northern sky.

Bottom line: The constellation Gemini the Twins is home to Castor and Pollux. Learn more about these bright stars, which you can see on northern winter nights.

Meet Taurus the Bull in the evening sky
Gemini the Twins, home to 2 bright stars
Meet Cancer the Crab and its Beehive Cluster
Leo the Lion and its backward question mark
Virgo the Maiden in northern spring skies
Meet Libra the Scales, a zodiacal constellation
Scorpius? Here’s your constellation
Sagittarius? Here’s your constellation
Capricornus the Sea-goat has an arrowhead shape
Aquarius? Here’s your constellation
Meet Pisces the Fish, 1st constellation of the zodiac
Say hello to Aries the Ram
Born under the sign of Ophiuchus?

The post Meet Gemini the Twins, home to Jupiter and 2 bright stars first appeared on EarthSky.

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/4YyU5SD

The constellation Gemini the Twins is high in the February evening sky. And in February 2026, the bright planet Jupiter is near the 2 brightest stars of Gemini. These stars are golden Pollux and white Castor. Pollux is the slightly brighter one. But Jupiter outshines them both! Chart via EarthSky.

EarthSky’s 2026 lunar calendar is available now. Get yours today! Makes a great gift.

Gemini, the constellation of the Twins

Most people see the constellation Gemini as just two bright stars – Castor and Pollux – sometimes called the Gemini twins. These two stars aren’t really twins. Pollux is brighter and more golden in color. Castor is slightly fainter and white. But both stars are bright, and they’re noticeable for being close together on the sky’s dome. From time immemorial, people have thought they looked like brother stars.

And in 2026, the bright planet Jupiter is among the stars of Gemini and near the twin stars. It’ll remain in Gemini through June when it moves in front of the constellation of Cancer the Crab.

Best viewing for this constellation

January, February and March are great for observing these stars. Then Gemini is well up in the east at nightfall. In early February, Gemini climbs highest in the sky around 10 p.m. local time. By the end of February, the constellation is highest around 9 p.m. That’s local time, the time on your clock, no matter where you live around the globe.

Gemini stays in view in the evening sky until around May. By late May and June, Gemini is found low in the west at nightfall, and Gemini’s two brightest stars – Castor and Pollux – fade into the sunset before the June 21 summer solstice. The sun annually passes in front of Gemini from about June 21 until July 20.

There’s also a fine star cluster visible in binoculars

The constellation Gemini the Twins. Castor and Pollux are considered the “twin” stars in the constellation. Nearby M35 is an open star cluster easily spotted in binoculars. Image via EarthSky.

Myths and lore

In skylore, Castor and Pollux were the sons of a mortal mother, Leda. Castor was the mortal brother, son of Tyndareus, and Pollux the immortal brother, son of Zeus. Castor and Pollux were joyfully united in spirit, yet sorrowfully divided by circumstance. When Castor was slain in battle, Pollux was inconsolable and begged Zeus to relieve him of the bonds of immortality. Zeus granted his request, and, to this day, Pollux and Castor stand reunited in the heavens, a tribute to the redemptive power of brotherly love.

Thus, the Greek myth of Castor and Pollux explores the inherit duality of life, of mortality and immortality forever intertwined.

The 2 bright stars Castor and Pollux each mark a starry eye of a Gemini Twin. If you have binoculars and a dark sky, be sure to check out Gemini’s beautiful star cluster, Messier 35, or M35, in western Gemini near the Taurus border. See it, at the foot of Castor? Image via AugPi/ Wikimedia Commons/ GFDL.

How to find Gemini from Orion

If you can pick out just one noticeable sky pattern in the February night sky, it’s probably the constellation Orion the Hunter. On February evenings, from the Northern Hemisphere, Orion is high in the south.

Orion is noticeable for its Belt stars, a short, straight row of three medium-bright stars. Look below Orion’s Belt for the very bright blue-white star Rigel. Now look above Orion’s Belt for the reddish star Betelgeuse. You can draw an imaginary line from Rigel through Betelgeuse to locate Castor and Pollux. Remember, you’ll be looking for two bright stars that are noticeably close together.

Facing south to southwest (from Northern Hemisphere locations) on January, February and March evenings, draw an imaginary line from Orion’s 2 bright stars – Rigel through Betelgeuse – to star-hop to Castor and Pollux. For a specific location and time of year, try Stellarium. Image via EarthSky.

How to find Gemini using the Big Dipper

The Big Dipper is an asterism, not a true constellation, but a very clear dipper-shaped pattern of stars. The Big Dipper is always located generally northward on the sky’s dome. Draw an imaginary line diagonally through the bowl of the Big Dipper, from the star Megrez through the star Merak. You are going in the direction opposite the Big Dipper handle. This line will point to Castor and Pollux.

Facing north (from Northern Hemisphere locations) on late evenings in January and February, and evenings in March. Draw an imaginary line diagonally through the Big Dipper bowl to locate Castor and Pollux. For a specific location and time of year, try Stellarium. Image via EarthSky.

Or use the moon to find Gemini

As the moon swings full circle through the constellations of the zodiac, it passes through Gemini for a few days each month. Check EarthSky Tonight – especially in the months of January, February and March – for posts showing you the moon near Castor and Pollux on specific dates.

Or play around with the online planetarium program, Stellarium. It can show you when the moon moves through Gemini every month (except during those months when Gemini is behind the sun).

Spotting Sirius when Gemini is high in the sky

By the way, Gemini and the nighttime’s brightest star, Sirius, reach their highest points in the sky at roughly the same time. At middle latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, we see Gemini’s brightest stars, Castor and Pollux, nearly overhead while Sirius sparkles quite low in our southern sky. (Sirius is always fairly low in the sky of northerners.) South of the equator, it’s the opposite: Sirius shines way up high while Gemini sits low in the northern sky.

Bottom line: The constellation Gemini the Twins is home to Castor and Pollux. Learn more about these bright stars, which you can see on northern winter nights.

Meet Taurus the Bull in the evening sky
Gemini the Twins, home to 2 bright stars
Meet Cancer the Crab and its Beehive Cluster
Leo the Lion and its backward question mark
Virgo the Maiden in northern spring skies
Meet Libra the Scales, a zodiacal constellation
Scorpius? Here’s your constellation
Sagittarius? Here’s your constellation
Capricornus the Sea-goat has an arrowhead shape
Aquarius? Here’s your constellation
Meet Pisces the Fish, 1st constellation of the zodiac
Say hello to Aries the Ram
Born under the sign of Ophiuchus?

The post Meet Gemini the Twins, home to Jupiter and 2 bright stars first appeared on EarthSky.

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/4YyU5SD

John Glenn 1st American in orbit 64 years ago today

John Glenn became the 1st American in orbit on February 20, 1962. Astronaut Glenn sits outside the space capsule Friendship 7. Image via NASA.

EarthSky’s 2026 lunar calendar is available now. Get yours today! Makes a great gift.

John Glenn orbited Earth 64 years ago today

John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth on February 20, 1962, 64 years ago today. During 4 hours and 55 minutes, he circled the globe three times in his space capsule Friendship 7. The feat made Glenn a national hero and a household name.

It was the ’60s, and the space race was on. The U.S. and the Soviet Union competed to achieve important firsts in space.

Glenn was one of the first American astronauts, a member of the group NASA called the Mercury 7. Author Tom Wolfe immortalized them in his masterly 1979 book The Right Stuff. Glenn and his fellow astronauts rode cramped Mercury space capsules into the unknown.

In those days, NASA astronauts gave personal nicknames to their space capsules. Glenn and his family decided on the word Friendship, adding the number 7 to honor his fellow Mercury astronauts. But NASA’s official name for Glenn’s mission was Mercury-Atlas 6: Mercury for the Roman god of speed and Atlas 6 to indicate that this was the sixth mission to launch atop the powerful Atlas rocket.

NASA introduced its 1st astronauts – the Mercury 7 – on April 9, 1959. LIFE magazine photographer Ralph Morse took this image on March 17, 1960. Front row, left to right: Walter M. Schirra Jr., Donald K. “Deke” Slayton, John H. Glenn Jr., and M. Scott Carpenter. Back row: Alan B. Shepard Jr., Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, and L. Gordon Cooper Jr. Image via NASA.

“Godspeed, John Glenn”

Atlas rocket and weather problems forced NASA to postpone Glenn’s orbital launch four times. Finally, with the weather cooperating and the Atlas problems resolved, Glenn strapped into Friendship 7 early on the morning of February 20, 1962. Schoolchildren (including me) watched on television as the countdown ended and Glenn blasted into space. As History.com explained:

As mission control performed its final system checks, test conductor Tom O’Malley initiated the launch sequence, adding a personal prayer, ‘May the good Lord ride all the way,’ to which Carpenter, the backup astronaut for the mission, added, ‘Godspeed, John Glenn.’ Carpenter later explained that he had come up with the phrase on the spot, but it did hold significance for most test pilots and astronauts: ‘In those days, speed was magic … and nobody had gone that fast. If you can get that speed, you’re home-free.’

In other words, to attain even a low Earth orbit, the challenge is to reach a fast-enough speed. The mean orbital velocity needed to maintain a stable low Earth orbit is about 17,000 miles per hour (27,000 kilometers per hour, or 7.8 kilometers per second). Glenn reached that speed, a first for any American.

Glenn wasn’t the first American in space. He was third, after the short suborbital flights of Alan Shepard (May 1961) and Virgil “Gus” Grissom (July 1961). And he wasn’t the first earthling to orbit Earth. Again, he came in third, following two Russian cosmonauts: Yuri Gagarin (April 1961) and Gherman Titov (August 1961). Glenn’s orbital flight meant that the U.S. was catching up to the Soviet Union in the space race.

John Glenn climbs into the Friendship 7 space capsule just before making his first trip into space on February 20, 1962. Image via NASA.

Heat shield danger

John Glenn’s flight wasn’t without its scary moments. As History.com explained:

During his second orbit, Mission Control noticed a sensor was issuing a warning that Friendship 7’s heat shield and landing bag were not secure, putting the mission and Glenn in danger. Officials did not immediately inform Glenn of the potential problem, instead asking him to run a series of small tests on the system to see if that resolved the issue, which eventually clued Glenn in to their concerns. After a series of discussions, it was decided that rather than following standard procedures to discard the retrorocket (an engine designed to slow down the capsule upon reentry), Glenn would keep the rocket in place to help secure the heat shield.

In fact, all was well. Glenn successfully reentered the Earth’s atmosphere and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean. Ships, helicopters and frogmen successfully recovered him 800 miles (1,300 km) southeast of Bermuda. Later, when engineers inspected the recovered capsule, they found that the heat shield was fine. A faulty sensor had detected a problem that didn’t exist.

John Glenn was inspirational

John Glenn’s flight made him an instant national hero. He rode his fame to a long career in politics that included 25 years in the Senate and a presidential bid in 1984. Glenn returned to space at age 77 aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1998. His mission’s primary scientific aim was to study the effects of spaceflight on seniors. Glenn passed away at age 95 on December 8, 2016.

The space race is history, but Glenn’s flight 64 years ago continues to inspire. Shortly before his death, Hollywood commemorated his mission and the many people who made it possible in the popular 2016 film Hidden Figures.

View larger. | Here’s what John Glenn saw on February 20, 1962. Just 5 minutes and 44 seconds after launch, Glenn offered his 1st words about the view through his tiny porthole: “This is Friendship 7. Can see clear back; a big cloud pattern way back across towards the Cape. Beautiful sight.” Three hours later, at the beginning of his 3rd orbit, Glenn photographed this panoramic view of Florida from the Georgia border (right, under clouds) to just north of Cape Canaveral. His American homeland was 162 miles (260 kilometers) below. “I have the Cape in sight down there,” he noted to mission controllers. “It looks real fine from up here. I can see the whole state of Florida just laid out like on a map. Beautiful.” Image via NASA.

Bottom line: John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth on February 20, 1962, 64 years ago today. His space capsule was the Friendship 7.

Read more from NASA: Glenn orbits Earth

Read more from History.com: 7 things you may not know about John Glenn

The post John Glenn 1st American in orbit 64 years ago today first appeared on EarthSky.

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John Glenn became the 1st American in orbit on February 20, 1962. Astronaut Glenn sits outside the space capsule Friendship 7. Image via NASA.

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John Glenn orbited Earth 64 years ago today

John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth on February 20, 1962, 64 years ago today. During 4 hours and 55 minutes, he circled the globe three times in his space capsule Friendship 7. The feat made Glenn a national hero and a household name.

It was the ’60s, and the space race was on. The U.S. and the Soviet Union competed to achieve important firsts in space.

Glenn was one of the first American astronauts, a member of the group NASA called the Mercury 7. Author Tom Wolfe immortalized them in his masterly 1979 book The Right Stuff. Glenn and his fellow astronauts rode cramped Mercury space capsules into the unknown.

In those days, NASA astronauts gave personal nicknames to their space capsules. Glenn and his family decided on the word Friendship, adding the number 7 to honor his fellow Mercury astronauts. But NASA’s official name for Glenn’s mission was Mercury-Atlas 6: Mercury for the Roman god of speed and Atlas 6 to indicate that this was the sixth mission to launch atop the powerful Atlas rocket.

NASA introduced its 1st astronauts – the Mercury 7 – on April 9, 1959. LIFE magazine photographer Ralph Morse took this image on March 17, 1960. Front row, left to right: Walter M. Schirra Jr., Donald K. “Deke” Slayton, John H. Glenn Jr., and M. Scott Carpenter. Back row: Alan B. Shepard Jr., Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, and L. Gordon Cooper Jr. Image via NASA.

“Godspeed, John Glenn”

Atlas rocket and weather problems forced NASA to postpone Glenn’s orbital launch four times. Finally, with the weather cooperating and the Atlas problems resolved, Glenn strapped into Friendship 7 early on the morning of February 20, 1962. Schoolchildren (including me) watched on television as the countdown ended and Glenn blasted into space. As History.com explained:

As mission control performed its final system checks, test conductor Tom O’Malley initiated the launch sequence, adding a personal prayer, ‘May the good Lord ride all the way,’ to which Carpenter, the backup astronaut for the mission, added, ‘Godspeed, John Glenn.’ Carpenter later explained that he had come up with the phrase on the spot, but it did hold significance for most test pilots and astronauts: ‘In those days, speed was magic … and nobody had gone that fast. If you can get that speed, you’re home-free.’

In other words, to attain even a low Earth orbit, the challenge is to reach a fast-enough speed. The mean orbital velocity needed to maintain a stable low Earth orbit is about 17,000 miles per hour (27,000 kilometers per hour, or 7.8 kilometers per second). Glenn reached that speed, a first for any American.

Glenn wasn’t the first American in space. He was third, after the short suborbital flights of Alan Shepard (May 1961) and Virgil “Gus” Grissom (July 1961). And he wasn’t the first earthling to orbit Earth. Again, he came in third, following two Russian cosmonauts: Yuri Gagarin (April 1961) and Gherman Titov (August 1961). Glenn’s orbital flight meant that the U.S. was catching up to the Soviet Union in the space race.

John Glenn climbs into the Friendship 7 space capsule just before making his first trip into space on February 20, 1962. Image via NASA.

Heat shield danger

John Glenn’s flight wasn’t without its scary moments. As History.com explained:

During his second orbit, Mission Control noticed a sensor was issuing a warning that Friendship 7’s heat shield and landing bag were not secure, putting the mission and Glenn in danger. Officials did not immediately inform Glenn of the potential problem, instead asking him to run a series of small tests on the system to see if that resolved the issue, which eventually clued Glenn in to their concerns. After a series of discussions, it was decided that rather than following standard procedures to discard the retrorocket (an engine designed to slow down the capsule upon reentry), Glenn would keep the rocket in place to help secure the heat shield.

In fact, all was well. Glenn successfully reentered the Earth’s atmosphere and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean. Ships, helicopters and frogmen successfully recovered him 800 miles (1,300 km) southeast of Bermuda. Later, when engineers inspected the recovered capsule, they found that the heat shield was fine. A faulty sensor had detected a problem that didn’t exist.

John Glenn was inspirational

John Glenn’s flight made him an instant national hero. He rode his fame to a long career in politics that included 25 years in the Senate and a presidential bid in 1984. Glenn returned to space at age 77 aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1998. His mission’s primary scientific aim was to study the effects of spaceflight on seniors. Glenn passed away at age 95 on December 8, 2016.

The space race is history, but Glenn’s flight 64 years ago continues to inspire. Shortly before his death, Hollywood commemorated his mission and the many people who made it possible in the popular 2016 film Hidden Figures.

View larger. | Here’s what John Glenn saw on February 20, 1962. Just 5 minutes and 44 seconds after launch, Glenn offered his 1st words about the view through his tiny porthole: “This is Friendship 7. Can see clear back; a big cloud pattern way back across towards the Cape. Beautiful sight.” Three hours later, at the beginning of his 3rd orbit, Glenn photographed this panoramic view of Florida from the Georgia border (right, under clouds) to just north of Cape Canaveral. His American homeland was 162 miles (260 kilometers) below. “I have the Cape in sight down there,” he noted to mission controllers. “It looks real fine from up here. I can see the whole state of Florida just laid out like on a map. Beautiful.” Image via NASA.

Bottom line: John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth on February 20, 1962, 64 years ago today. His space capsule was the Friendship 7.

Read more from NASA: Glenn orbits Earth

Read more from History.com: 7 things you may not know about John Glenn

The post John Glenn 1st American in orbit 64 years ago today first appeared on EarthSky.

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/7bdAVGX