earthsky.org

EarthSky.org is a science news and sky-watching website covering space, astronomy, Earth science, and human spaceflight. It is aimed at general readers who want daily updates on the cosmos and practical guidance for observing the night sky. Its content is organized around a few recurring sections — Tonight, Space, Sun, Earth, Human, Best Places to Stargaze, and EarthSky Community Photos — and it publishes short, dated articles rather than long reference pages. If you want to know what is visible overhead tonight, or follow spaceflight and solar activity in plain language, this is the kind of site you would check regularly.

What you'll find on EarthSky

The homepage reads like a rolling news feed, with each item stamped with a date and author. From the site's own listing, the recurring categories are:

• Tonight — visible planets, moon phases, and night-sky viewing guides
• Space — spaceflight and mission news
• Sun — solar activity, including eruptions and aurora forecasts
• Earth — Earth science topics
• Human — human spaceflight
• Best Places to Stargaze — observing locations
• EarthSky Community Photos — reader-submitted images

There are also standing sections such as Brightest Stars, Astronomy Essentials, Clusters, Nebulae, Galaxies, Favorite Star Patterns, and Constellations, which function more like evergreen explainers than news.

Examples of the content

The site mixes time-sensitive reporting with practical observing advice. Representative items from its feed include:

Notice the pattern: a headline states the event or object, and the article explains what it is and, where relevant, how or when to look for it.

How to use it

If you want a specific answer, the section structure is the fastest route:

1. Looking for tonight's sky — go to Tonight for the current planets, moon phase, and viewing guide.
2. Tracking an event — check Space or Sun for dated posts on launches, eruptions, and aurora chances.
3. Learning a constellation or object — use the Constellations, Brightest Stars, or Astronomy Essentials sections.
4. Seeing what others captured — browse EarthSky Community Photos, or submit your own through the site's photo submission entry.

Staying updated

EarthSky offers an email newsletter described as a daily update with science news, photos, and sky alerts. The signup form states that the email address is used only for EarthSky content. The site also lists Subscribe, Store, and Donate links in its navigation, so some features or products may sit behind those pages — check them directly rather than assuming everything is free.

Who it's for

EarthSky suits casual sky watchers, students, and readers who want astronomy and Earth-science news in accessible language with a practical observing angle. It is less suited to readers seeking peer-reviewed papers, deep technical data, or long-form reference material — for those, the short dated posts here work better as a starting point than a final source.

Go to the Tonight section of EarthSky.org. It publishes a running guide to currently visible planets and night-sky objects, typically refreshed month by month, so it reflects what is actually up in the sky during the current period rather than a fixed list. The guide names specific targets — for example, the waning gibbous moon near the Pleiades star cluster and the orange star Aldebaran in Taurus — and links out to related sections such as Brightest Stars and Moon Phases when you want more detail on a single object.

Where the guide lives

EarthSky organizes its night-sky content under a Tonight heading, which appears in the site's main navigation. Within that section you'll find the recurring guide (titled something like "Visible planets and night sky guide" for the current month) alongside shorter, dated posts on individual events.

The guide is written and updated by EarthSky's editors and contributors, and each entry carries a date, so you can tell how current it is.

What the guide tells you

A typical edition covers:

• Which planets are visible and roughly when during the night.
• The moon's phase and position, including whether it's near a named star cluster or bright star.
• Specific pairings or close approaches worth looking at — the moon with the Pleiades and Aldebaran is one recurring example.
• Directional cues, such as looking west for the daytime moon.

Because the guide is tied to the current month, the exact objects change over the year. A planet that's prominent now may drop out of evening visibility a few weeks later.

How to use it

1. Open the Tonight section from the site's navigation.
2. Find the current month's visible-planets-and-night-sky guide.
3. Read the listed targets and note the times and directions given.
4. If an object interests you, follow the links to related sections — Brightest Stars, Moon Phases, Astronomy Essentials, or Constellations — for background on that specific object.
5. Check the date on the post before you go outside; an older guide may describe a sky that no longer matches.

Related sections worth knowing

The Sun section is useful if you're also watching for auroras: EarthSky posts solar news, including coronal mass ejections that may reach Earth and produce G1 (minor) storms and auroras.

Practical notes

• The guide is a general observational aid, not a personalized forecast — it describes what's visible to a typical observer, so your actual view depends on your location, weather, and light pollution.
• EarthSky also offers a daily email newsletter covering science news, photos, and sky alerts; the site shows a sign-up form for it. Whether that involves any paid tier isn't stated in the available material, so treat the newsletter as a separate feature from the free-to-read guide.
• If you want a photo of what others are seeing, the EarthSky Community Photos section collects reader submissions.

EarthSky covers spaceflight milestones, solar activity and space weather, exoplanet research, and planetary-science missions, alongside its better-known night-sky viewing guides. Its space coverage is written by named authors and dated, so you can judge how current a story is. If you want to know whether EarthSky is the right source for a specific topic — a rocket launch, a solar storm, or a research finding — the sections below show what it actually publishes.

Spaceflight and launch milestones

EarthSky reports on human and robotic spaceflight, including first-of-their-kind achievements. One example from its Space section is a story headlined "Starship reaches Earth's orbit for 1st time," filed by Will Triggs. The headline style tells you what to expect: a milestone framed as a first, with the vehicle named directly.

For launch coverage, this means EarthSky is useful for the headline event — did the vehicle reach orbit, did the flyby succeed — rather than for minute-by-minute live updates.

Solar activity and space weather

Sun coverage focuses on events that can affect Earth. A representative item is a "Sun news" roundup dated September 29, 2026, describing a huge filament eruption that hurled a coronal mass ejection into space, with part of it possibly reaching Earth on October 2, and noting that G1 (minor) storms and auroras were possible.

That entry shows the pattern clearly:

• What happened — a filament eruption and CME
• When it may arrive — a specific date
• What it could cause — G1 storms and auroras
• Who wrote it — C. Alex Young, Armando Caussade, and Raúl Cortés

If your interest is aurora chasing or geomagnetic conditions, this is the kind of post to watch.

Exoplanets and astronomy research

EarthSky also translates research findings for a general audience. One example covers work by researchers in Ireland who found a new way to decode weather on exoplanets, starting with the planetary-mass object SIMP 0136. The story is credited to Paul Scott Anderson.

The framing is typical: an institution or country, a method, and the object used as the test case. Expect the "what it means" layer rather than the full paper.

Planetary-science missions

Mission updates appear as well. One item notes that the JUICE mission completed a flyby. Coverage at this level is about status — where a spacecraft is and what maneuver it just performed — not engineering telemetry.

Night-sky viewing, the site's other half

Space news sits alongside observing content, and the two are easy to tell apart by section:

A separate item, "Watch for the daytime moon after sunrise this week," shows the Tonight section's practical style: look west after sunrise to see the moon against a blue sky.

How to judge whether a story fits your need

Because each item carries an author name and a date, you can filter quickly:

• Looking for a launch or mission outcome? Check the Space section and read the headline for the milestone.
• Tracking aurora or geomagnetic storms? Check Sun news for CME arrival dates and storm-level forecasts.
• Want research explained simply? Look for stories naming an institution and a study object.
• Want to observe tonight? Use the Tonight and Constellations sections instead.

EarthSky also offers a daily email update covering science news, photos, and sky alerts, and the site lists Subscribe, Store, and Donate options. The page evidence does not state prices or whether any content sits behind a login, so treat those as unconfirmed until you check the site directly.

EarthSky's Community Photos section is a reader-submission gallery: visitors browse published astronomy photos under View Community Photos, and submit their own through the Submit a Photo link. Both entry points sit in the site's main navigation, alongside sections like Tonight, Space, Sun, Earth, Human, and Best Places to Stargaze. If you want to see what other observers are capturing — or add your own image to the pool — this is the section to use.

What the section contains

Community Photos is a gallery of images contributed by EarthSky readers rather than by staff writers. It sits in the same navigation group as the site's observation-oriented content, so it functions as the reader-facing counterpart to EarthSky's editorial coverage of the night sky.

The surrounding sections give a sense of how it fits in:

Because Community Photos is grouped with Best Places to Stargaze and the Tonight guides, it's positioned as practical, observer-driven content — the kind of material you'd look at when planning or reviewing your own skywatching.

Browsing published photos

To view the gallery, use the View Community Photos link in the site navigation. This takes you to the collection of images that have already been published, so you can see what other readers have photographed before deciding whether to contribute.

This is the lower-commitment path: no account details or upload steps are involved in simply looking. It's also the sensible first stop if you're unsure what kind of image the section tends to feature.

Submitting your own photo

The submission path runs through the Submit a Photo link, which appears in the same navigation area as View Community Photos. The site presents these as two distinct actions — one to browse, one to contribute — rather than a single combined page.

EarthSky's newsletter signup on the same site notes that an email address "will only be used for EarthSky content," which reflects the site's general approach to reader data. The available page material does not describe the photo submission form's specific fields, image requirements, or review process, so treat those as things to check on the Submit a Photo page itself rather than assumptions.

What to expect as a contributor

A few practical points follow from how the section is structured:

• It's a gallery, not a feed. Published photos appear in a browsable collection, so your image joins a body of work rather than a live stream.
• Editorial content and community content are separate. Staff-written pieces (for example, the night-sky guides or spaceflight stories) are distinct from reader submissions, even though they share the same navigation.
• The section pairs with observing content. If you're using EarthSky to plan a session — checking the visible-planets guide, then looking for dark-sky locations — Community Photos is the natural place to compare results afterward.

If your goal is to see real reader images, start with View Community Photos. If your goal is to contribute, go to Submit a Photo and review the form's requirements there, since the site's navigation alone doesn't specify them.

You can subscribe to EarthSky's free daily email newsletter using the sign-up form on the site, and you can support the organization through the Store and Donate links in the main navigation. Both options are visible on the homepage and throughout the site's menu.

Subscribing to the EarthSky newsletter

EarthSky offers a daily email update. The sign-up form on the site describes it as:

• Science news
• Great photos
• Sky alerts

The form states that your email address will only be used for EarthSky content, and a Privacy Policy link is provided next to it. After submitting, the page shows a confirmation message ("Thank you! Your submission has been received!"), and an error message appears if the form fails.

How to subscribe:

1. Go to earthsky.org.
2. Find the newsletter sign-up form (it appears near the top of the homepage).
3. Enter your email address in the field.
4. Submit the form.
5. Watch for the confirmation message on the page. If you see the error message instead, try submitting again.

The sign-up form does not state a cost, so treat the newsletter as something to confirm on the site itself rather than assuming terms.

Supporting EarthSky: Store and Donate

The main navigation includes two direct support paths:

Both links appear in the site's top navigation alongside sections like Tonight, Space, Sun, Earth, Human, Best Places to Stargaze, Community Photos, About, and Contact Us.

Learning more or getting in touch

• About — background on the organization and its mission ("One Earth. One Sky.").
• Contact Us — for questions the subscription and support pages don't answer.

If your goal is simply to keep up with sky events, the newsletter is the lowest-effort option. If you want to contribute financially or buy something, use the Store or Donate links directly from the navigation.