Frosty Drew Clear Sky Chart

Current seeing conditions at Frosty Drew Observatory

The Sun and Moon Today

  • The Sun as seen today from NASA SDO.
  • Waning Crescent 30% phase

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Satellite Events for Tonight

How Black Holes Produce Powerful Relativistic Jets

Reported by Universe Today

In a recent study, theoretical physicists at Goethe University Frankfurt described the origin of powerful jets emanating from the core regions of galaxies using a series of complex simulations....
  • By: Matthew Williams (https://www.universetoday.com/authors/houseofwilliams)
  • On: Thu, 16 Oct 2025 00:47 +0000

Foldable Solar Sails Could Help With Aerobraking and Atmospheric Reentry

Reported by Universe Today

Use cases for smart materials in space exploration keep cropping up everywhere. They are used in everything from antenna deployments on satellites to rover deformation and reformation. One of the latest ideas is to use them to transform the solar sails tha...
  • By: Andy Tomaswick (https://www.universetoday.com/authors/andy-tomaswick)
  • On: Wed, 15 Oct 2025 14:58 +0000

Humble Yeast Has Planetary Survival Skills

Reported by Universe Today

Rather randomly I’ve just returned from a theatre tour where my science show featured yeast in one of the experiments, so when research about yeast surviving Martian conditions crossed my desk, it immediately piqued my interest. These microscopic fungi t...
  • By: Mark Thompson (https://www.universetoday.com/authors/mark)
  • On: Wed, 15 Oct 2025 11:49 +0000

When Fire Brought Ice to Mars

Reported by Universe Today

Mars is a planet of mystery! Its surface today is cold and dry, yet evidence suggests it was once home to flowing water. Most of the planet's remaining ice sits locked away at the poles, but recent observations have detected signals of hydrogen in equatori...
  • By: Mark Thompson (https://www.universetoday.com/authors/mark)
  • On: Wed, 15 Oct 2025 11:37 +0000

When Tides Turn White Dwarfs Hot

Reported by Universe Today

White dwarfs are stellar corpses, the slowly cooling remnants of stars that ran out of fuel billions of years ago. Our Sun will eventually share this fate, collapsing into a compact object so dense that the heavier it becomes, the smaller it shrinks. This ...
  • By: Mark Thompson (https://www.universetoday.com/authors/mark)
  • On: Wed, 15 Oct 2025 11:26 +0000

Solving the Mystery of Solar Rain

Reported by Universe Today

It rains on the Sun! Although not in any way we'd recognise from Earth. In the Sun's corona, the superheated atmosphere that extends millions of kilometres above its visible surface, cooler blobs of plasma occasionally form and fall back downward in what a...
  • By: Mark Thompson (https://www.universetoday.com/authors/mark)
  • On: Wed, 15 Oct 2025 01:12 +0000